29mm Garment Spec NTAG424

Seritag stock and can supply a wide range of tags for smart clothing, garments, shoes and other wearables. We have extensive experience and are always happy to provide help and advice. A few things to consider : 

Durability

Generally, the choice is between a 'garment spec' label and a hard disc tag. 

Seritag created the term Garment Specification tags to define strengthened labels which are typically designed for up to 100 domestic washes. Our tags are either tested using thermal and humidity cycling or testing to the ISO6330 international standard for textile washing. They are slightly flexible. 

Hard disc tags are rigid PPS plastic tags typically from 20mm to 25mm in size. 

Our general advice is that if your project should not have any failed tags under any circumstances, you need to use a hard disc tag. If you don't expect the garment to be washed (collectables) or washed infrequently, you expect the tags only to be scanned early in their life and/or an occasional failure later in the garment's life is acceptable - use a Garment Spec label. 

Attachment

Most garment tags - both disc and label - would be attached behind a sew-on or iron-on label. Sew-on is typically the best choice for all tags but almost always for rigid disc tags. 

We can also supply sew-on disc tags which look like buttons and can be directly applied. We aren't keen on these as the central holes can restrict chip and antenna design and can often lead to a tag that can be difficult to scan. 

We usually stock some direct iron-on garment tags which can be ideal for placing tags during manufacture or for shorter term direct use. Generally, for longer use, direct iron-on tags should be placed behind a second iron-on or sew-on patch to keep them secure.

Logistics

One bit of advice we always give - start simple and grow. The logistics of adding NFC tags to clothing can get complicated quickly - as most factories aren't used to using smart labels. While it might be the goal for unique tags in every product line, size and colour - it might not be best to try and do that from day one.

Keep it generic, keep it simple. The grow. 

Management

Seritag offer our groundbreaking ixkio tag management platform for deployment and post-installation management of both standard and authentication NFC tags. Whether you need to create dynamic NFC tags so you can modify the links later or full featured authentication for anti-counterfeit, our software has all the features you are likely to need.  

More Information

To help you get started with creating clothing NFC, we've put together an Ultimate Guide to NFC Clothing. 

What is tag management ?

NFC tag management allows you to dynamically control the destination URL of your NFC tags. It provides tracking and stats, authentication services for anti-counterfiet tags, and a host of features to assist in getting the right tags in the right locations or products. Ixkio even allows you to encode your own NTAG213, iCODE or NTAG424 tags with our mobile App. 

Using ixkio

Ixkio is designed as an engine for your NFC tags and works alongside your existing ecommerce or marketing website. You don't need to spend time and money to recreate your branding or content. Ixkio can be used as an API system for authentication or more commonly a redirect system - managing dynamic links. Of course, you can attach your own domain so the tags are encoded with your brand. 

Tags can be encoded by us at supply (free of charge for labels) or you can encode your own tags - including NTAG424 - usng our mobile app or your own mehtods. You can then manage and alter the tag destination using rules and dynamic data features to display pages from your exiting website. 

Ixkio provides additional powerful tools to protect your landing page when using authentication tags and can even pass tag related information from ixkio - such as serial numbers or prodict information - to be dynamically displayed on your page. We have even built a Shopify App to make integration easier for Shopify users. 

Can ixkio be used for Digital Product Passports (DPP) ?

Absolutely. Ixkio has a comprehensuve data factilities engineered to allow extensive product information to be connected to your tags. This data can then be dynamcially passed to your existing website for display if required. 

Getting started

Ixkio subscriptions can be purchased online at ixkio.com or contact us for more information. 

A quick guide

A normal NFC chip, such as the NTAG213, NTAG215 or iCODE SLIX can store a URL (web link) in it's memory. When scanned, it presents this link to the scanner (a mobile phone for example). It presents the same link every time, in a similar way to a QR Code. 

An authentication NFC chip, such as the NTAG424, works differently. When the URL is encoded onto the tag, a secret key is also encoded, along with some other settings. When the tag is scanned, it presents the URL but also a unique code which is generated using this secret key. This unique code changes on every scan and can be verified using an authentication server which will hold the same secret key. 

Note that the full name for the NTAG424 chip is the NTAG424 DNA. We usually just refer to it as the NTAG424 chip. 

Using authentication chips

As this code is unique for each scan, these NTAG424 NFC tags can be used for anti-counterfeit and authentication. It makes them extremely powerful as they can be used to ensure that the tag is the exact tag that you expect it to be. All from a simple scan with a mobile phone (no special app required).

Authentication chips have a huge range of use cases from the obvious protection of luxury goods, artwork and pharmacuiticals to supply chain security, document authentication, ticketing, proof of physical presence, secure log-on and more. 

Encoding authentication chips

While standard NFC tags can be easily encoded with any of the free mobile phone applications, encoding NTAG424 chips is substantially more complicated. You have four choices : 

1. Use NXP's TagXplorer desktop software to encode the tags (note that NXP no longer support this software but at the time of writing it was still available to download)
2. Build your own encoding system.
3. Get Seritag to encode your tags for you
4. Use our Ixkio Tag Management platform and encode with our ixkio mobile app.

More information

For more information on buying and using NTAG424 or other authentication chips, contact us or read more about NFC tag authentication.