How Certirex works

Find out how to create and manage digital identities for your physical products with our platform.

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A four-step process

Marry your products with digital identities and manage their associated content.

1. Connect

Connect products or items with QR Codes and NFC Tags

2. Design

Build and launch dynamic mobile experiences

3. Engage

Empower consumers to interact with your products

4. Learn

Measure Interactions with real time analytics

Applications & Technologies

Certirex offers limitless options for implementing NFC tags or QR codes in products or packaging.

Embedded Products

NFC tags can be directly embedded into physical products, turning them into powerful always-on communication channels between brands and consumers.

It is the best way to forge and maintain a strong connection with consumers by offering them access to dynamically changing content across the whole product lifecycle.

There is just one tricky, little thing – different products call for different shapes of tags and each item may require a different way of embedding.

The good news is that our experts help you choosing the right tag to digitally connect your product, and then embedding it in a repeatable, efficient way.

Smart Labels

A Smart Label is a label that incorporates an embedded NFC Chip or printed QR Code to extend the functionality and contents of a traditional label.

It is the ideal tool to create a wow-worthy retail experience and differentiate your products on the store shelf by offering information-hungry consumers access to extended product knowledge and branded content.

Smart Labels are extremely versatile and can be built and designed in many different ways:

  • Hangtags
  • Care Labels
  • Adhesive Labels

Smart Cards

If you want to connect high-value products to the Certirex Cloud and give consumers that special VIP feeling, you should consider going for a smart card.

It is a small card embedded with a NFC tag or a printed QR Code on it and offers exclusive access to branded content. Smart Cards come in the size of a credit card and can be customized to your needs:

  • PVC Cards
  • Recycled PVC Cards
  • Wooden Cards

Smart Packaging

Your packaging is the first point of contact a consumer has with your product and your brand. So it is the interface to impress consumers with stunning product-related mobile experiences from day one.

With smart packaging, you can go beyond its basic function of passively containing and protecting the product by adding a digital touchpoint that provides mobile experiences with real benefits for the consumer. We offer you to implement our technologies into your:

  • Product Packaging
  • Shipping Boxes
  • Printing Materials

Frequently Asked Questions

Get answers to common questions about the Certirex Platform and its connecting technologies.

  • General
  • NFC
  • QR

Every physical product can be digitized and connected to a QR Code and NFC tag. 

Companies across a variety of industries can benefit.

 

  • Any company that sells products that are prone to tampering or counterfeiting.
  • Any company that has a story to tell and wants to connect directly to its consumers through its products.
  • Any company that wants to  gather data from their physical products and study consumer behavior.

Product serialization is the process of assigning a unique identity to each saleable product item. This identity can be assigned by affixing a unique code on each product item, usually in the form of a QR code or NFC tag.

 

It allows you to identify products on an item-level,  increases transparency along the entire product supply and value chain, reduces counterfeits and enables product intelligence as well as personalized experiences.

A digital identity is a digital representation of a physical product, including the product's unique code and the complete attributes that are associated with it.

We offer different security levels - from low security to high security. 

No, consumers do not need an app to access any content. All content is accessible via web browser. All they need is a smartphone with which they can scan a QR Code or read a NFC tag. 

It's hard to generalize which one will fit the best without knowing specific goals and products. However, our approach is divided into 4 phases:

 

1. Business Case:
Our team studies each clients’ needs individually in order to develop the best solution possible.

2. Technology:
We share our knowledge and select the right technology that fits to your goals, needs and budget.


3. Pilot Batch:
For each product that will be digitized, we provide a batch of technology samples that can be used for different implementation tests.


4. Rollout:
The preferred solution will be implemented in a repeatable, efficient way.

Near-field communication (NFC) is a short-range wireless connectivity technology that uses radio frequency energy to exchange data over short distances.

Once an NFC-enabled mobile phone and an NFC tag are in close proximity, they generate an electromagnetic field to exchange digital content.

There are a lot of use cases for NFC across a variety of industries. Some of the most common include:

 

  • Contactless payments
  • Interacting with products
  • Data transfer between devices

An NFC tag is a tiny chip connected to an antenna. The chip has a unique ID and can be encoded to allow interactions with NFC-enabled devices like mobile phones.

NFC has a typical read range of 1 to 4 centimeters.

NFC Tags can be read via an NFC-enabled devices. Today there are around 2 billion mobile phones in the market that are capable of reading NFC Tags. The following guide gives an quick overview, how to read NFC Tags depending on your mobile device.

  • iPhone X or newer:
    You can read NFC-tags at any time. Just tap the top of your iPhone on the NFC-Tag.
  • iPhone 7 - iPhone X:
     Activate the NFC-Tag-Reader in the control center. Tap the top of your iPhone on the NFC-Tag.
  • Android:
     Activate NFC in quick settings. Tap the back of your smartphone on the NFC-tag.

Near field communication and radio frequency identification are closely related, as NFC technology evolved from RFID technology. While there are similarities between the two, there are also differences, which is why the respective technologies are usually applied to different use cases.

 

NFC has a very short range of action and is generally used for communication. Examples include:

 

  • Contactless payment
  • Information/data sharing
  • In-store check-ins
  • Product-related mobile experiences

 

RFID operated over large distances and is generally used for identification. Examples include:

 

  • Asset tracking
  • Race timing
  • Attendee tracking
  • Inventory management

 

 

The first big difference between the two is the so called line of sight. This identity can be assigned by affixing a unique code on each product item, usually in the form of QR code or NFC or RFID, etc.

 

While QR codes are decoded via an optical image recognition process, NFC tags transmit their stored data via an NFC connection to the scanning smartphone.

 

Furthermore, NFC tags are able to provide a high security standard, while QR codes are generally not secure. 

 

NFC tags come in a range of antenna sizes and shapes for different applications. Certirex offers a huge variety of different NFC Tags to provide a tailored solution for all kinds of products and packages. Depending on the use case and individual brand goals we suggest NFC Tags that vary in their size, durability and level of protection.

A Quick Response (QR) Code works in a similar fashion to that of a barcode. It contains small data packets in the form of dots that hold a certain piece of information. In contrast to a traditional barcode, a QR Code can be scanned with a mobile phone to access its encoded information.

 

Most of the mobile phones already have a QR code scanner built in. So you can simply scan a QR code using the camera. If your mobile phone does not have an integrated scan feature, you can simply download a scanner app.

QR codes can be easily created online via so-called code generators or within our platform. After entering data, a QR code is automatically created.

QR codes can be fully customized. You can add your favorite logo, colors, different data patterns, frames and call-to-actions.

Static QR Codes direct consumers to a fixed destination. This means that they are not editable after creating them.

 

Dynamic QR Codes are  continually editable, trackable and customizable, making them more versatile than Static QR Codes.

The first big difference between the two is the so called line of sight.

 

While QR codes are decoded via an optical image recognition process, NFC tags transmit their stored data via an NFC connection to the scanning smartphone.

 

Furthermore, NFC tags are able to provide a high security standard, while QR codes are generally not secure. 

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