Ekahau Announces Wi-Fi Location Tag
01 June, 2004
category: RFID
Ekahau, the leading provider of accurate Wi-Fi positioning solutions and site survey tools, today announced the availability of the Ekahau T101 Wi-Fi tag development kit. This development kit includes the Ekahau Positioning Engine (EPE) 3.0 software and 5 battery powered Wi-Fi tags, for people and asset tracking within standard Wi-Fi networks. The award winning EPE software can also track the location of wireless laptops, PDAs, barcode readers and other Wi-Fi-enabled devices.
Unlike competing solutions, the Ekahau T101 tags do not need any proprietary antenna or radio infrastructure on site, but can work with any standard 802.11b and g access point brands, thus enabling pure Wi-Fi based real-time tracking of people, equipment and assets. The Ekahau solution provides enterprises a low cost and rapid way to deploy a tracking solution in their environment. Unlike RFID or Infrared based solutions, the T101 tag is not required to be in the close proximity of a reader gate or scanner. This allows the T101 tags to be used for continuous location tracking as long as the tag is within Wi-Fi coverage area, which can encompass an entire building or campus.
“The Ekahau T101 will fundamentally change the traditional location tracking market dynamics.” says Antti Korhonen, CEO and President, Ekahau, Inc. “With Ekahau T101, people and asset tracking solutions will be easy and cost effective to deploy on top of any standard Wi-Fi network, and enterprises can continue to leverage Wi-Fi for data and voice applications as usual.”
The Ekahau T101 is targeted at enterprises who deploy wireless systems in areas such as healthcare, warehousing and any other industry segments, where a wireless location tracking system brings value in improving work flow, security and employee safety, as well a wide array of uses for tracking assets and valuable production equipment. Typical applications include: enabling hospital staff to locate nearest caregivers, patients or critical equipment, warehouse managers dispatching lift trucks by location, manufacturing site managers tracking employees for safety, plus several other next generation asset and people tracking applications.