Interview with Aileen Ryan
1. What technological challenges must be overcome to successfully integrate UHF into smartphones?
We’re right at the beginning of the journey of integrating RAIN technology into smartphones, and so the challenges are still largely to be defined. Initial areas of investigation include privacy and security of consumer data and the ability to “resolve” identifiers to a specific individual item instance – a challenge not necessarily unique to RAIN technology.
“In the meantime, the RAIN Alliance is kicking off a set of new working group activities this month to ensure these elements are carefully considered, studied and solutions provided.”
Aileen Ryan – President and CEO, RAIN Alliance
2. What is the added value of UHF in smartphones? Which target groups or markets will benefit most?
Aileen Ryan joined the RAIN Alliance in October 2022. She is widely recognized as a leader in the global communications industry and was named by Silicon Republic as one of the top 25 Irish leaders in the Sci-Tech world.
Anyone producing products that will be governed by the EU’s Digital Product Passport (DPP) regulation or UN Transparency Protocol will benefit enormously from the integration of RAIN technology into smartphones. The same RAIN tag that they currently use for B2B applications, such as supply chain optimisation and inventory management, will also provide the B2C information and capabilities they require, without need for a second data carrier with its associated costs and complexity.
Any other markets or sectors that currently use RAIN technology but may not initially fall under the DPP regulation will also benefit. It makes logical and commercial sense to ensure their investment in the technology can be leveraged throughout the full lifecycle of the items to which RAIN tags are attached. For example, we know that some healthcare providers see RAIN Readers in consumer handsets as an opportunity for highly personalised medication programmes where the patient can validate their unique drug regime.
Anyone producing products that will be governed by the EU’s Digital Product Passport (DPP) regulation or UN Transparency Protocol will benefit enormously from the integration of RAIN technology into smartphones. The same RAIN tag that they currently use for B2B applications, such as supply chain optimisation and inventory management, will also provide the B2C information and capabilities they require, without need for a second data carrier with its associated costs and complexity.
Any other markets or sectors that currently use RAIN technology but may not initially fall under the DPP regulation will also benefit. It makes logical and commercial sense to ensure their investment in the technology can be leveraged throughout the full lifecycle of the items to which RAIN tags are attached. For example, we know that some healthcare providers see RAIN Readers in consumer handsets as an opportunity for highly personalised medication programmes where the patient can validate their unique drug regime.
Aileen Ryan joined the RAIN Alliance in October 2022. She is widely recognized as a leader in the global communications industry and was named by Silicon Republic as one of the top 25 Irish leaders in the Sci-Tech world.
3. What end-user applications can you envision?
It’s very much still early days when it comes to imagining the use-cases of RAIN technology in smartphones for the end consumer. However, there are some already in discussion that would improve the entire end-to-end shopping journey – from searching for an item, purchasing it and aftercare.
Consumers looking for a specific item in store would be able to locate it using their smartphone, with RAIN technology also enabling unparalleled seamless omnichannel shopping journeys. Once an item has been taken home, a smartphone integrated with RAIN technology could be used to find missing items within your own home; to more accurately target consumers in the event of a product recall; and enable full transparency of the provenance and authenticity of an item both before and after purchase.
There are also numerous additional new benefits for the “brand” or “store” when it comes to integrating RAIN technology into a smartphone. This includes access to location data in-store based on data gathered in an ambient manner from consumer handsets; engaging with customers via their connected items; enabling new business models such as rental of high value or specialised items; and, finally, brands can have much higher confidence that items will be treated correctly at their end of life.
RAIN technology
RAIN technology is already mandated and used at massive scale, with tens of billions of RAIN tags shipped every year. Various sectors benefit from its capabilities in supply chain optimisation, inventory management, loss prevention and more, with tag unit prices already low enough to make it cost-effective to tag more and more items. For instance, Walmart is now even tagging items that have a sale price of less than $1.
RAIN chips and tag form factors are also now so small and lightweight that they can be embedded in items without interfering with the aesthetics, and they can be robust enough to withstand many hundreds of wash cycles or other challenging environmental conditions. As such, the tags can be usable for the full lifecycle of the item.
This is particularly important when considering the EU’s incoming Digital Product Passport regulation and other similar emerging legislation, such as the UN Transparency Protocol, which are driving for digital identifiers to be attached permanently to items from “cradle” to “grave”. The benefits of RAIN technology outlined above make it an obvious candidate for this usage.
“RAIN typically has not been used in a B2C context previously, but with the Qualcomm announcement* of August 2024 we can see this changing.”
Aileen Ryan – President and CEO, RAIN Alliance
*In late summer 2024, the RAIN Alliance, together with Qualcomm, Impinj and Decathlon, published a joint announcement on the topic of “UHF RFID in smartphones”. Qualcomm issued the following statement: “The integration of RAIN (UHF RFID) technology into mobile devices is progressing rapidly, with initial deployments focused on enterprise mobile devices and expected within a few quarters. Consumer devices equipped with RFID technology will soon follow”.
