Is an RF booster upgrade of Digital Logic hardware recommended? #
When choosing the appropriate development tools for their project among the Digital Logic hardware, many of our customers are unsure whether they should select a device with an RF booster upgrade.
The purpose of the RF booster upgrade #
The RF Booster upgrade is optional for most of the devices in our product line. Its purpose is to power up the reader’s RF field and extend the device’s reading and writing range.
This is a great feature, having in mind that the 13.56 MHz high-frequency readers and writers, as well as the cards and tags they are working with (so-called proximity cards and rags), usually don’t have the capability to communicate at longer distances.
If so, the obvious question is: Why not upgrade your new NFC RFID reader/writer to include this feature?
When to avoid adding the RF booster to the µFR series hardware #
The RF booster upgrade is available for the following µFR devices:
- µFR Classic CS
- µFR Classic
- µFR Advance
- µFR XL OEM
If you intend to use the µFR SDK for your project development and look for the hardware’s best performance, you will get great results with your RF-boosted µFR reader/writer in most of the systems you are building.
However, the RF booster upgrade is NOT RECOMMENDED in the following cases:
- in projects that require NFC tag emulation
- in projects that use MRTD for the ePassport reading.
In both cases, the RF booster won’t have the expected outcome; on the contrary, it can interfere with some crucial software features and cause problems with card processing.
When to avoid adding the RF booster to the DL533N and DL533R series hardware #
The RF booster upgrade is available for the following DL533N and DL533R devices:
- DL533N CS
- DL533N CS IP54
- DL533N XL
- DL533R CS
- DL533R CS IP54
- DL533R XL
None of this hardware complies with the uFR SDK because the DL533N devices come with libNFC support whereas the DL533R devices have PC/SC driver support. In these cases, our support is limited to hardware support only. Therefore, we are unable to accurately analyze any potential conflicts that may arise when RF-boosted devices are applied with certain software development.
