Afimilk

The Customer

Afimilk Opens new site is a dairy management company that produces cattle monitors, farm management software and parlor automation devices. Headquartered in Kibbutz Afikim, Israel, Afimilk products are used by over 15,000 farms spread across more than fifty countries. Their products are designed to make dairy herds healthier, easier to manage and more efficient.

The Challenge

Afimilk’s cattle monitoring solutions provide farmers with all the information they could ask for: heat detection, rumination and eating time data, individual health alerts, group digestion alerts and more. Cows are differentiated from each other with a simple cow identification number, which is stored as NFC data in the individual cow’s monitoring device, the Aficollar.

To access this identification number, farmers used the built-in NFC capabilities of their mobile phones. This, however, had some substantial downsides. Chiefly: the required proximity to the animal, putting hardware at risk.

“Cows are almost 1,000-pound animals. When the customer puts their cell phone against the cow, they risk breaking, damaging, or completely ruining the cell phone,” said Itay Rejzewski, Product Manager for Afimilk.

The Socket Mobile Solution

After researching dedicated NFC readers, Afimilk settled on Socket Mobile’s DuraScan D600 NFC Reader/Writer. The D600 is easy-to-use, developer-friendly and highly durable—an essential feature for Afimilk’s customers.

Rather than using a SDK, Afimilk integrated the D600 based on keyboard input. They encounted some challenges along the way and reached out to Socket support.

“The support was fantastic, everything I needed I had Vincent Coli [Senior Product Manager, Socket Mobile] helping me immediately,” said Rejzewski.

The Results

“It made the task of reading the tag easier. Much easier compared to reading with a cell phone,” said Rejzewski.

The D600 saves labor, improves efficiency, and lowers the risk of damaging a device. It allows Afimilk’s customers to focus on what matters: the data and its significance to their operation.

Encouraged by positive customer feedback and a smooth rollout, Afimilk wants to build upon the success of the D600 implementation. They are looking to develop more NFC-enabled products in the future.

 

Try it free.

Test out our data reading and scanning technology for free with SocketCam. The SocketCam C820 lets you scan directly into your feature application using the camera on your mobile device, ensuring high-performance scanning without the need for an external barcode scanner.

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