www.airtagkit.com

Shortly after reader V1 demonstrations, AIRTAG concluded several contracts and, therefore, decided to make an industrial version.
The plastic box was made in a milling factory while AIRTAG’s technical team was soldering the components on the card.

At this point, AIRTAG had to improve the ‘look’ of its reader for commercial distribution.
First step was customization of the box with a skin sticker:

And then the blue pulse that became the AIRTAG touch:

In December 2006, manufacturing is completely outsourced: plastic box extruded from a single raw piece, soldering by double remelting, …

AIRTAG Reader V2 is the precursor of AirtagKit:

After a successful trial with a leather collector RFID reader (see Chapter 1), we decided, in July 2006, to build a prototype with a more conventional shape.

The plastic box has been carved with a school milling equipment (courtesy of the high school nearby AIRTAG’s office). This reader V1 is based on Inside Contactless’s antenna and chip. It communicates with a PC through RS232 interface.
AIRTAG’s logo makes its first appearance highlighted by astonishing visual effects. ;)

This prototype is the very first AIRTAG’s product demonstrated to customers.

Created by former development and technical directors of Haiku, AIRTAG is born from the idea that NFC is going to spread all around the world soon. Japan has already set the path with more than 30 millions NFC phone sold.

First “attempt” to create an NFC reader was initiated in spring 2006.
It was built inside a leather vanity case with a mini-PC, a wifi module snatched from a laptop, a PC speaker and of course an RFID antenna.



First trials revealed a noise in the speaker caused by the antenna. So we decided to add a magnetic shield made of aluminum shoved into a plastic bag

To complete this “brand new” reader, we asked a shoemaker to sew RFID tags inside leather bracelets.



And this is how the story begins.

Soon, you’ll discover the first genuine prototype…