Activating RAINstream and Reading RFID Tags
Introduction
This is part four of a four-part series that walks through unboxing and setting up the ThingMagic Izar RFID Reader and installing the ThingMagic URA. After that, the series navigates the user through the URA and then how to activate the RAINstream software to read and write tags.
[Audio Transcription Below]
In this video, we are going to walk through the process of activating RAINstream and using it to read RFID tags.
Set Up
First, ensure you have RAINstream activated. You can check this by navigating to the reader’s Web User Interface or Web UI. To do this, simply enter the reader’s host name located on the side of the reader.
In this case, we will enter http://IZAR- and the last six digits of the MAC address. Enter the username and password, “web” and “radio” to access the Web UI. Once you are logged in, navigate to “Apps” and click on the RAINstream tab on the left side of your screen. You will then be asked to enter the license key to activate RAINstream, which you should have received from your supplier. The reader will reboot after the license key has been entered.
Once the reader has rebooted, you will be asked to login to the Web UI again. Once logged in, navigate to the “Settings” Tab and select the “Reader” tab. Select the antenna port you are using by checking one of the boxes shown on the screen, and select “GEN2” under the protocols option. Click “Save Reader Settings”, then click “OK.”
Now we can adjust the settings needed for RAINstream. Click on the “Apps” tab and navigate to the “RAINstream” tab on the left side of the screen. If you haven’t done this already, click ON and OFF toggle on the right side of the screen to turn on RAINstream.
You can now select which fields you want to show up when you read tags. For this example, we will just select the “Antenna” option. RAINstream will automatically display the EPC and read time if you decide to not select any of these options.
Next, set the Trigger to “Immediate”. If you are using any GPIO devices such as motion sensors or buttons, set the trigger to GPI. You can set the GPIO number and level based on your GPIO wiring configuration. Select which output channel you would like your tag reads to be displayed in. For this video, we will be using the “Keyboard Wedge” Output channel displayed in hexadecimal format. For the "Keyboard Wedge" output, we will need a USB to micro USB cable so the reader can send the tag reads to the PC.
Additionally - You can also select other output channels such as TCP/IP which is typically used if your reader is directly connected to your network, and you don't have direct access to it. You can also use HTTP POST if you want the data to be transferred to a database.
Click “Save” and your reader will automatically start reading tags. To check this, open up a program such as notepad to view your tag reads. Since we are using the “Keyboard Wedge” as an output channel, we will need to connect the reader to the PC using the console port on the side of the reader. Connect the micro USB cable to the console port on the reader, and the other end of the cable to an open USB port on your PC.
You should now see the text document being populated by the tag data read by the reader.
Conclusion
Thanks for joining us and walking through the steps of activating RAINstream and reading RFID tags. For more information on all things RFID, visit our RFID resources page or our YouTube channel. If you have any questions at all, send us an email or give us a call!
To read related articles, check out the links below!