Bonus Edition (#4): Manage Your Sweets with RFID

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology is used in countless applications, from security systems to race timing to counterfeit product prevention. In “Manage Your Sweets with RFID,” Rob Reynolds shares a fun and informative RFID-based project that will helps him manage his family's sugar intake. Don't have a sweet tooth? No problem. You can apply what you learn to various other RFID applications and projects. Read the article.
   

Why Use RFID to Monitor Consumption?

Like true pro maker, Reynold’s solved an everyday problem with some smart engineering. “Since the start of the pandemic, we’ve all been spending all of our time together at home, and during that time I’ve learned something,” he explains. “We have a serious problem with M&Ms consumption … As I was deemed the person with the most self-control, my wife asked if I could come up with a way to limit our daily intake of these sweet candy treats. This seemed like a perfect project to demonstrate RFID technology. So, I bought an old coin-operated candy vending machine on eBay and went to work.”
 
In the article, Reynolds covers the hardware essentials — including the vending machine and RFID antenna/reader — and the program — which monitors card swipes, tracks date changes, and resets the swipe count for each card.

"With the machine in place, each family member now has their own RFID card," he explains. "I’ve limited us to two servings of M&Ms per day, monitored with the SparkFun Qwiic Real Time Clock module. The script keeps track of the date from the RTC, and when the date changes, all cards are reset to zero, for another day’s ration of treats!"

But that's not all. For fun (and when cravings get out of hand), Reynolds even incorporated “an emergency card that bypasses the daily limit.”
   

Declassified Bonus Edition: More to Come

Elektor and SparkFun have more content in the pipeline. Next week, we will present you with another declassified article. And don’t forget to check out all the amazing SparkFun products we have in the Elektor Store.