NCR Demonstrates RFID Self-Checkout
13 August, 2004
category: RFID
RFID Journal – Self-Checkout Gets RFID Upgrade
“To demonstrate how RFID tags on individual products can speed customers through checkouts, retailing technology provider NCR has installed an RFID-enabled self-checkout register at Metro Group’s RFID Innovation Center in Neuss-Norf, Germany. To create what NCR says is the world’s first self-checkout solution with an integrated RFID reader, the company took one of its existing NCR FastLane units, which come with a built-in bar code scanner, and fitted with it an RFID upgrade kit.”
Without actually using the unit, editors are unimpressed with NCR’s offering. The unit bears a striking resemblance to a normal self-checkout unit and relies on bar codes to actually identify the products.
“The hybrid checkout system’s RFID capabilities are being used to deactivate the security function of an item’s RFID tag at the same time the unit scans the item’s bar code label during the checkout process. In a store setting, that would enable the customer to exit the store without triggering a security alarm.”
So all it’s doing is deactivating the RFID “security system.”