NEW YORK, Aug 3 — Supported by all passenger airports globally, the clever suitcase tag uses RFID chips to keep track of your bags and travel details and ensure that if they do go astray, they can be identified anywhere in the world.
And, more importantly, when rediscovered, ensure that you’re notified by email or SMS.
The ReboundTAG uses two RFID tags—one acts as a digital yet anonymous identifier (i.e., it tells the system and no one else who the bag belongs to) and the other is reprogrammed with your travel details every time you arrive at the desk and check in your cases. RFID tags communicate with digital readers and scanners without requiring a power source of their own, so they never need recharging and always work.
The major baggage handling systems have all adopted the technology meaning that they already use RFID scanners for identifying and checking baggage in and out. However, as not all airports currently support the technology, the tags are also printed with a barcode and a number that can be used for the same identification purposes.
And, if a bag does get misplaced or left behind when the plane takes off or is lost somewhere else in the system, this combination of chips and barcodes means that the bag’s owner will be updated in real time via email or SMS when the bag is found, whether the piece of luggage in question is identified via an RFID chip, the barcode, or the paper tag that the airport has stuck to it at check-in.
“We have worked with airlines and airport systems developers to incorporate all of the relevant airline technologies into one tag,” said the company’s CEO Max Rangeley, “we have the microchips, barcode, printed number, and also the exclusive system whereby the baggage handling company we work with will look for our members’ lost bags in the global databases and update them even if it is found using the airline paper tag.”
Already on sale in the UK, when they roll out globally later this year, each ReboundTAG will cost an initial £24.99 (RM135) and that payment covers the cost of a luggage tag plus a year’s membership to the supporting system. Subsequent membership renewals will be charged at £4.99 a year.
The cost of the membership covers the use of the tag on an unlimited number of flights within a year and for receiving a potentially unlimited number of texts and emails.
As well as individual tags, the company will be selling the ReboundTAGs in a family pack of four for £84.99. — AFP-Relaxnews
