A new Kickstarter campaign is looking to fund further development and production of the GearEye gear management system. GearEye uses inexpensive, battery-free adhesive RFID tags, which are attached to all your equipment. This enables photographers to make sure that they've got everything that they need in their gear bag when going to a shoot and that they don't leave anything behind when returning home.
The GearEye RFID reader comes in two form-factors, either as a stand-alone device, which you leave in your bag, or a phone-cover that doubles as charger. Once your items have been tagged and the reader is in place everything in your bag can be accounted for via a single tap in the GearEye smartphone app. If something is missing the system also helps you locate it within its range.
Additionally you can organize your equipment into customized lists. This way you can make sure to only bring the equipment you need for a specific type of photo shoot and leave unnecessary items at home, thus minimizing the weight of your bag. For this purpose the app tells you if there is anything in your bag which you won't need.
GearEye has been created with photographers in mind, but of course would work with any other type of equipment or tools as well. The project has already passed its funding goal, so if all goes well the first units should be delivered in July 2017. Until tomorrow you can still secure a GearEye standard pack by pledging $129. This gets you a GearEye dongle or phone case and 20 RFID tags. Larger packages are available for those who need to tag more items. More information is available on the GearEye Kickstarter page and in the video below.
What is this :...a phone-cover that doubles as charger." What does the cover charge ?
I keep my stuff either in my little bag or on a shelf. Before leaving home, I look at the shelf and grab things I want.
The 'is it in my bag' when I return home would be helpful for some people. For this to be really helpful, though, RFID on both lens and lens cap would be needed... RFID on cable release, viewfinder cover, filter case... the little things go walk-about. I haven't ever forgotten my camera or backpack or pants.
Or just look in your bag before you leave to see if everything is there. You can also create a check list to be safe you don't miss anything. This product is DOA and anyone who funds this will pretty much be throwing money in the toilet.
Thats ridiculous in my opinion. (besides the technical limitations that Stefan pointed out that make this nearly impsosible to build in a usefull way) If you take one look into your bag you can already see if the main and biggest pieces of equipment are in there (lets say main camera with lense + additional lense and flash). You would not forget these at any time. What you do forget are small things, CF Cards, Batterys, adapter cables, lav-mics... and you certainly won't put an RFID tag on something like a battery, card or on cables. Or do you? Do you realy forget that often crucial parts of your stuff? Also, who does take always all of his equipment to a shoot? Don't you change your equipment depending on the shooting?
In a previous job just 2-3 years ago I developed some RFID-based software, so I know a bit about the technical background. What they announce here is just a lot of wishful thinking; the type of RFIDs supported by modern smartphones is based on ISO-14443, using 13.56 MHz. While it is possible to detect multiple RFID tags with that technology, that works only in theory and only with very short distances - we are talking about only a few centimeters here, which limits the usefulness of this idea. And this is without any disturbances caused by metallic parts like lenses.
There is just no way to scan the content of the entire photo bag in one go; you'd have to unpack every single item to inventory the bag, and this would completely defeate the purpose of this idea.
And where an RFID tag would possibly go on thin items like, say, a polarizer beats me; ditto with batteries which typically don't have enough free space around their sides while still fitting into the camera.
The RFIDs they show on their web site look like UHF (EPC Gen 2) to me. That wouldn't work with a smartphone's NFC directly, so it would be an extra device that communicates with the smartphone (Bluetooth? Wi-Fi?) somehow. That would be that dongle on their web site. But that dongle looks damn small to me to work with UHF; that technology lives and breathes by the size of its antenna, and how it would get a decent signal from something the size of a photo bag is beyond me. Industrial-sized UHF RFID readers are typically the size of a couple of DVD cases stacked together - plus antenna.
When I did a little research, it looked like industrial normal mode helical antennas for RFID reading in the 860-960 MHz band are designed for distances of ~10 meters. As described, the distance for this use-case seems to be about 1 meter.
This is the first Kickstarter accessory posted on DPReview that makes sense. It's actually a solution to a problem instead of a solution looking for a problem!
Quite a good application of RFID. They use passive tags (which require no power - they are activated by the reader). These tags cost about 20 cents each, and from the kickstarter page it appears they are charging about 25 cents per tag, which is reasonable. The cost of the reader is also reasonable, based on my work with RFID in the past. I would expect the tags to be thin enough to even put on batteries that need to be inserted in the camera. The strength of RFID lies in inventory control, and this seems to me to be a terrific idea. Did I really pack those spare batteries or not? I was initially skeptical when I read this, but the more you think about it, the better it is. [I do not work for the company!] An interesting point is that sometimes RFID reads are unreliable (near a lot of metal for example) but it is clear that the software would then say you have not packed the unreadable item, in which case you would check, so it is quite robust. Interesting!
What do you think about the reader just being in the bag, in any orientation, and reading at some distance and through a lot of metal? They are using EPC Gen 2 tags (860-950MHz) which can be read at decent distances, although usually by pointing the reader in that direction. (I suspect you actually have to take the reader out and point it.) They are using large tags, which is a plus, but they also show smaller tags, so if the smaller tag will work why have larger ones too? Presumably you have to watch out for reading stuff some way away which doesn't have anything in the way? The phone case(s) also seem to fit a lot of wildly different phones. Maybe it will be good, I have no idea but there seem some interesting things present. I also wonder if there are any patent issues.
I would just have one on each key bag or package or lens. That way, if a camera is left behind, you do not leave it at some restaurant and with it all those precious images!
Doesn't work for me, especially when lighting on location. I have to bring most everything I own just in case. Even after decades of practice, this happens time and again, where all the advance planning doesn't prepare for what I discover during the shoot. Having all the extra stuff on hand makes it possible to improvise and get it done.
Still such an inventory system might help you to make sure you bring all your gear back home -- if the system actually worked, which I doubt (see previous post from me).
Only once did I leave something behind -- one of those slave flash units that screws into a lamp socket. I'll bet the office manager was surprised to find it when the light didn't turn on -- "what the heck is this thing? ...a surveilance bug?"
I have everything organized in different bags and I check each bag after it's packed. As long as my brain cells remain intact...
"Bring Me That Awesome Camera Lens, Friend." has worked for me...when I follow it. Bring - Batteries Me - Memory Card That - Tripod (use "My" for monopod) Awesome - Adapter (I use a lot of adapted lenses) Camera - uh, ok, I'll admit it, I'm old enough that I have forgot it. Lens - Yep, that too. Friend - Flash.
if you also think the rfid-tags are too big and might be way too less for all your bits and pieces, may i suggest a nice gear-list manager like https://lighterpack.com/
I don't know, that's a long way to read a RFID tag from and a lot of metal in the way. I'll be interested to see how it goes... I'm going with some scepticism. P.S. I do own a RFID reader.
These stickers are huge for some gear, probably especially for those mostly forgotten (some small accessories). Stickers can badly influence usability of some items (if not make them unusable at all) not to mention the appearance. For example - the are batteries which are quite stiff, memory cards - don't imagine how to stick something on them, all smaller sized lens, mounting plates etc. Not for me.
It's a great idea! I do very different shoots, needing different gear (especially the number of flashes, light diffusers, triggers, stands vary greatly). This would save me a lot of time to check what's in my bags and what not.
One rainy day, make a list of all necessary equipment, print it and laminate in plastic. Put this card in your photo backpack. Ready! You can spend saved money on something more useful
you'd still have to manually control that everything is there or not. I think for a professional this product could be a great time-saver, everybody else probably doesn't really need it...of course that doesn't mean you can't have it ;)
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