Smart Spaces

Smart buckles for deliveries

Author: Takaaki Nakamura, Manager, Home Solutions Company, Nifco Inc.
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Nifco often breaks new ground with its developments. The Japanese company has a strong focus on plastic products ranging from the automotive industry to daily necessities. One of the latest inventions aims to make our everyday life easier – smart buckles for goods delivery.

Nifco Smart buckles for deliveries

1: Lock; 2: Female part; 3: Male part; 4: Transmission unit

EnOcean inside

There were strong demands from companies already using buckles to be able to receive a radio signal to confirm the status (open/closed) of the buckle. The smart buckle Nifco developed utilizes EnOcean’s ECO 200 energy harvester and its PTM 535x wireless radio module. As it is a wireless energy harvesting system which doesn’t use any batteries, there’s no need to ever change the batteries. That is why Nifco has been able to build a completely waterproof and dustproof buckle.

Nifco Smart buckles for deliveries

Use cases range from food delivery to classic logistics

The smart buckle can be attached to a delivery box or can be used together with a shipping bag or box. The adoption of the smart buckle makes it possible for the receiving end to confirm the delivery status and for the logistics industry to check the opening status of the package.

The smart buckle could also be implemented in a food delivery box. Most smartphones already use GPS signals, making it possible to transfer the open/closed signal from the attached smart buckle to a cloud server. When there’s a delivery, it can immediately be seen when the delivery staff closes the smart buckle on the box and when it is opened by the recipient.

www.nifco.com/en

About Perpetuum

Perpetuum is EnOcean's customer magazine focusing on solutions and products for energy harvesting technology. The technology delivers the data for the Internet of Things in a resource-saving, self-powered and maintenance-free way. In doing so, it enables the smart use of buildings, cities and industrial plants. In the categories Internet of Things, Smart Building, Smart Lighting and Smart Home the EnOcean's partners in particular have their say highlighting their expertise.

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