New RedBee firmware v1.0.2 released

After it’s initial release, a few bugs have been identified and resolved in the RedBee reader. The first major bug was a bit-flip issue that basically read and recorded tag ID bits in reverse order. As long as you didn’t need to inter-op with other readers, this wasn’t a big deal. However as soon as RedBee was brought in to play nice with other readers as part of a collaborative system, confusion set in. Another bug recently identified had to do with not properly saving the AP pulse pin parameters when the output of the pin was logic 0 instead of the more common logic 1.

But what about new features? Well, I’ve started using the RedBee for a lot of different projects, and one of those projects has to do with access control and management. One of the things I had worked into the 1.0.2 firmware release was the ability to trigger an autopulse via command. In previous versions of the firmware, the only way to trigger a pin via software/command was to set the pin state with an SIO command. Unfortunately this command unset any AP autopulse settings. Then to revert the pin state, you had to issue another SIO command, then issue an AP command to reset the autopulse parameters for valid tag reads. This was quite cumbersome, but now with v1.0.2 you can simply issue the AP command with no parameters and if a AP parameters exist, an autopulse will be triggered just the same way it would if a valid tag was presented.

All new RedBee readers with hardware version 1.1 sold after today should contain v1.0.2 (or better) firmware. If you have an older reader with v1.0.0 or v1.0.1 firmware, I’m offering a firmware upgrade service for $20, which includes return shipping costs (within the continental US). If you’re interested in upgrading your RedBee firmware, just leave a comment on this blog post or send me a PM via the RFID Toys forum.

Tags: redbee, rfid

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 2nd, 2011 at 12:49 pm and is filed under Adventures in RFID. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.