Impinj Speedway Connect Software | How to Use the Output Options

Suzanne Smiley | Mar 31, 2022 | min read

Welcome to this video that will walkthrough how to use the Impinj Speedway Connect Software’s output options – let’s jump right in. To watch this video on YouTube, click here.

Video Script

Today we are going to walkthrough the 5 available output options and how to get started using them. It’s important to note that 3 of these output options are streaming almost real-time data, while the other 2 output options are near real-time depending on a few different factors.

Serial Port - Real-time data - For this output option, we leave most of the normal factory settings the same, but I do change the ‘Line Ending’ from LF to CRLF just so that the data is formatted in a way that is easier to read on screen. I check the box for Serial Port and then apply the changed settings. For this output option you must use the GPIO port on the reader to access the serial port.

A custom cable maybe required for this specific output option, to learn more, checkout this link. Once the settings are applied, I open the program PuTTY - the link to download that program available here. I know my COM port is COM13 so I input that and then make sure that the Speed equates to the Baud Rate in the Output Connection and make sure that the connection type is set to Serial and then click ‘enter’ or ‘open’.

As you can see our tag reads are populating. Ill close this one and let’s move to the next output option, Keyboard Emulation.

Keyboard Emulation - Real-time data - With all the settings the same, I uncheck Serial Port and check Keyboard Emulation in the Output: Connection section and then hit apply. Be sure to connect the reader’s USB Device port to your PC via an appropriate USB cable. Once the settings are applied, I pull up a blank notepad file and click anywhere inside. It might take a few moments, but your tag reads should start populating.

I’ll exit out of the notepad file and move to the next output option, USB Flash Drive.

USB Flash Drive - Near real-time data - With all the settings still the same, I uncheck keyboard emulation and check USB Flash Drive and Apply the settings. Before the settings have been applied, I plugged in my flash drive to the reader’s USB Host port. Once that flash drive is plugged in, this software setting immediately creates a .CSV file on the flash drive and starts populating the tag read data in column A.

However, once you want to read the tags, you must remove the USB Flash drive from the reader, and plug it into your computer. This is why the read data is NEAR real time, because you cannot push read data AND read the file at the same time. Here is what the CSV file will look like, you can obviously change the text format out of scientific notation once the tag data is populated.

Ill exit out of this CSV file and move to the next output option, TCP / IP Socket.

TCP/IP Socket - Real-time data - With all the settings still the same, I uncheck USB Flash Drive and check the TCP/IP Socket and apply the settings. For TCP / IP Socket, the data is transmitted through an Ethernet cable and mine is already plugged in. Once the settings have been applied, I go ahead and copy the IP address within the URL and then open PuTTy again. This time change the connection type from SSH to Telnet, and paste in your IP address that you copied. Then change the Port number in PuTTY to match the Port number in Speedway Connect under Output: Connection. Click open and click inside the program and your reads should start populating.

I’ll exit out of Putty and move to the next output option, HTTP POST.

HTTP Post - Near real-time data - With all the settings still the same, I uncheck TCP/IP Socket and check HTTP POST. Similar to TCP / IP Socket, our data is transmitted through an Ethernet cable during HTTP POST, and mine is already plugged in. Our reader name is Impinj RFID Reader and I have a prefilled URL in the URL blank which is a Webhook site used for this video.

Webhook sites are public testing sites for HTTP POST requests, which is perfect for this video. Also, we have set the POST interval time for 5 seconds, as you can see here. What that means is that every 5 seconds the read data from our reader will be sent to our Webhook as a POST request. Here’s what that looks like. The read data is pre-populated because it comes over as a batch right here, and under “Raw Content” here. As you see, every 5 seconds, another batch of reads comes through as a new request that pops up over here to the left with new batched RFID reads.

Conclusion

Thanks for watching this video all about the output options for Impinj’s Speedway Connect Software. To learn more about the Speedway Connect Software - checkout the videos in the description below or click here to jump to our Impinj Speedway Connect video Playlist.

Remember to like this video and subscribe to our channel for more RFID Videos just like this one!

To read more articles about Impinj products, check out the links below!

R420 -

R700 -

ItemTest -

Speedway Connect Software -

SDK -

RFID Tutorial: Impinj Octane SDK

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