Finally – a cold chain management experiment you can try at home.
I recently dined at one of the peninsula’s finer Chinese restaurants — the Hong Kong Flower Lounge — and brought home a box of food we didn’t finish. Tonight upon coming home well past dinner time I peered into our refrigerator and eyed The Leftovers. Peking Duck, some Chinese tortillas, and some dumplings awaited me. Pulled the box out of the fridge and – whoa! – condensation.
Now many guys would smile at the condensation and begin to scarf The Leftovers without so much as a pass through that singularly transformative RF innovation at 2.45 GHz called the microwave oven. I, on the other hand, saw something different. I saw a DIY cold chain management case study.
Condensation is the equivalent of kryptonite to ZigBee. It renders ZigBee impotent. A cardboard box that is wet with condensation is about as likely to be penetrated by ZigBee as a hummingbird trying to blast through the exterior of a Hummer.
Such is the plight of the 2.45 crowd in myriad cold chain management applications. Fresh produce, vaccines, plasma, cut flowers, chocolate, ice cream, fine wine, or seafood. Not only are these products pretty much made of mostly water, but the condensation around these products – often packed in cartons or drums made of cardboard – acts as yet another barrier to 2.45 GHz. So the better visual is the hummingbird trapped inside the Hummer that is filled to the top with whipped cream — not only will the Hummingbird fail to pierce the mighty skin of the Hummer, but even getting to the skin itself may be impossible.
And if we are talking about frozen veggies, for example, it’s more like the Hummer is filled with ice cream.
So if you ever hope to monitor something that is mostly water or anything that might create a layer of condensation around itself, make sure you do your homework on the frequency you plan to use, since water condensation can turn a simple cardboard box into a virtual RF “tomb” from which no RF signals are likely to escape at 2.45 GHz.
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