I first thought it was a camera but there was no point, After some searching I found that these things could communicate optical, so that might be it, if so how do they work?

  • azdle@news.idlestate.orgEnglish
    13·
    11 months ago

    The top white rectangle is a multi-color LED (presumably RGB). Can’t make out what’s in the bottom, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was some form of light sensor for (literally) flashing new information onto the tag.

      • DeltaTangoLima@reddrefuge.comEnglish
        9·
        11 months ago

        I’m pretty certain these ones use visible light, with ceiling-mounted LEDs. They flash at specific frequencies that are imperceptible to the human eye, but can be interpreted by the electronic shelf label. Here’s a whitepaper explaining the concept.

        Source: for 20 or so years, I worked in technology for some of Australia’s largest retailers, and we tested a lot of these sorts of things in our labs. Very cool stuff.

        • SomeoneSomewhere@lemmy.nz
          2·
          11 months ago

          Hmm. They’re very common in NZ now, however it appears that document is talking about modulating the actual normal shop lighting, not just an independent transmitter.

          I redid the electrical in a supermarket already fitted out with Pricer gear, and we went from dumb electronic-ballasted fluoros to dumb-driver LEDs, no DALI and certainly no comms uplink or modulation smart enough for that. I’m aware that the document suggests power-line communication to the drivers, but these were off the shelf dumb drivers/ballasts.

          The ceiling mounted Pricer transceivers would have been doing all the transmitting, and as I never saw any visible light coming out of them, and the HF ripple and instability from the shop lighting would have been significant, I think it’s pretty safe to say they were using some form of IR.