Below are three of the top stories in automated data collection, RFID and the Internet of Things in recent weeks.
Wild Ride for Impinj Stock Continues On
Leading RFID chip and reader vendor Impinj continues its wild ride up and down in terms of its stock price, a simple fact of like for investors since the company went public in July of 2016 at about $19.00 per share. Wei occasionally take a look at the company and the stock as a barometer of the overall RFID market,
In Q4 2020 and then into Q1, Impinj’s stock price soared, rising from around $34 per share to a peak of about $72 in mid-February.
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| So with the RFID ring, wearers can perform all the same function available with implantable chips. |
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From there it slowly fell to around $58 leading up to its Q1 earnings call, which drove the share price down to $47 despite revenue and earnings that beat analyst estimate.
Impinj reported first-quarter sales of $45.2 million, ahead of analysts' consensus estimate of $42.6 million for the quarter. The company also surpassed analysts' earnings estimate of a loss of $0.12 per share and instead reported adjusted diluted earnings of $0.01 per share.
But despite the company's first-quarter revenue and earnings beat, investors pushed the share price down. They were likely disappointed with the fact that revenue declined by 5% from the year-ago quarter, and adjusted diluted earnings per share fell by 92% compared to first-quarter 2020 results.
The stock bounced back a bit, rising to $51.40 on Monday, before settling at $50.16 Tuesday.
As we’ve said for a while, buying Impinj on the dips would have made investors a lot of money since 2016.
Another Example of Costly Bar Code Theft at Retail (Home Depot)
Almost its seems every week there is a story somewhere in the US someone gets caught – often after getting away with it for weeks or months – replacing bar code labels for expensive products at retail with the bar codes for much cheaper items. That means they may be getting those goods for just pennies on the dollar, either keeping the illegally discounted goods, or more commonly reselling the products over the web.
In one of the latest example, in Watertown, NY, state police there State police charged 37 year old Jeffrey Gordon with grand larceny and petit larceny. Troopers said Gordon created the fake bar codes, scanned them at the self-checkout at a number of local Home Depot stores, and fraudulently paid lower prices on the items he bought.
According to police, Gordon did this 28 times between last November and this February at Home Depot locations in Dewitt, Camillus, Clay, Cicero, Auburn, and Watertown.
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The total amount of theft across all stores was approximately $10,000. Sometimes the thieves steal products together worth hundreds of thousands of dollars over time.
Forget RFID Implants – Go with RFID Ring Instead
 SCDigest has written many times about the “bio-hacking trend,” in which people have one or more RFID chips injected into their hands, used to perform tasks such as opening garage doors, turning on computers, paying for lunch at the company and other tasks with the wave of an arm.
But the procedure is invasive, usually requiring injecting the chip – about the size of a grain of rice – using a needle, a procedure most often performed by tattoo artists. (See RFID Implant Movement Slowly Growing.)
Maybe there is a better alternative. A new RFID ring is being made using 3D printing by scientists from Germany's Fraunhofer Institute for Casting, Composite and Processing Technology.
The ring has a chamber in the middle, in which a passive RFID chip is placed.
During the 3D metal printing process, a cavity is left inside of the ring. Before the print job is complete, it is paused in order to allow a robotic arm to insert the RFID tag into the cavity. The printing process then resumes, sealing the tag inside of the ring by printing a layer of metal over top of it.
Although materials such as metal can present a barrier to RFID signals, the layer over top of the ring's tag is just 1 millimeter thick, so it's not much of an issue, the company says.
So with the RFID ring, wearers can perform all the same function available with implantable chips.
The ring is still in development by Fraunhofer, but we’re liking it more than an implant.
Any reaction to the stories in this RFID/AIDC/IoT round up? Let us know your thoughts at the Feedback button below.
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