Bluetooth discussion - Bluetooth RFID Tag?

Author

Bluetooth RFID Tag?

harishashim@gmail.com

2006-08-02, 10:33 pm

I am just wondering if such technology is available.

This is handy. Since a lot of handphone and mobile devices come with
bluetooth. It is great If they can read RFID tags with additional
software and without additional hardware.

There is two part to this question.

1. Is it possible to write software or do some hardware modification to
make existing bluetooth device read iso14443 A/B RFID tag?

2. Is there special bluetooth tag out there that function similar to
iso14443 A/B RFID tag?

Thanks in advance.

Simon Templar

2006-08-06, 4:33 am

harishashim@gmail.com wrote:
> I am just wondering if such technology is available.
>
> This is handy. Since a lot of handphone and mobile devices come with
> bluetooth. It is great If they can read RFID tags with additional
> software and without additional hardware.
>
> There is two part to this question.
>
> 1. Is it possible to write software or do some hardware modification to
> make existing bluetooth device read iso14443 A/B RFID tag?
>
> 2. Is there special bluetooth tag out there that function similar to
> iso14443 A/B RFID tag?
>
> Thanks in advance

All Bluetooth devices have a BT address. For example my Bluetooth
dongle that I have plugged into my computer is 00:02:72:B0:00:26 and my
sister's phone is 00:18:0F:DD:86:FC

I have no idea what the protocol for this addressing is, but it should
suit your purposes.

--
The views I present are that of my own and NOT of any organisation I may
belong to.

73 de Simon, VK3XEM.

Henryk Plötz

2006-09-04, 10:33 pm

Moin,

Am 2 Aug 2006 20:00:51 -0700 schrieb harishashim@gmail.com:

> 1. Is it possible to write software or do some hardware modification
> to make existing bluetooth device read iso14443 A/B RFID tag?

No, at least not with the Bluetooth circuitry, like you are implying.
(Of course you could do a "hardware modification": integrate a proper
RFID reader circuit.)=20

ISO-14443 is 13.56 MHz, Bluetooth is 2.4 GHz -> completely different.
There may be Bluetooth devices that do some of their radio processing
in software, so in theory it might be possible to get these to transmit
something that remotely resembles a carrier at 13.56 MHz. But you
probably wouldn't get to send enough energy (because of different
antenna designs for Bluetooth and RFID) to even power up the tag. And
of course you'll never see the tag's answer.

> 2. Is there special bluetooth tag out there that function similar to
> iso14443 A/B RFID tag?

IIRC there was a discussion on bluez-users or bluez-devel (can't
remember which) a long time ago in which it was concluded that once a
Bluetooth USB dongle is configured (device name set and inquiry scan
mode enabled) it will be 'visible' even if the host computer is
disconnected, as long as it keeps getting power. So this might be used
as a sort of radio beacon.

A full standalone version could possibly created with a micro
controller. And of course there are ready-made Bluetooth to serial or
parallel converters (e.g. to wirelessly connect a printer) which could
be used in a similar way (and would probably be cheaper).

However, these are all fundamentally different from ISO-14443 tags,
because a Bluetooth device _always_ needs its own power supply.

--=20
Henryk Pl=F6tz
Gr=FC=DFe aus Berlin
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