Is anyone familiar with how ID chips for animals work?
For years we've had a microchip reading cat flap - specifically
this one,
almost.This model was originally developed and sold by Pet Porte Ltd, and that's the version we have. It works fine, but it's tired, grubby and held together with glue - so I bought a new one.
The new one is sold under the "Petsafe" brand by Radio Systems Corp, who
acquired the product in 2009. Aside from some branding on the plastic parts, the new one looks identical, and even the PCB layout looks the same.
But: the new unit won't scan my cats. The help page states, oddly prominently, that "
Please note that chips ... starting with 977xxxxxxxxxxxx ... are not currently compatible with the cat flap" - and sure enough, that's the type of chip they have.
Swap in the old PCB and it works fine.
I don't believe for a moment that the cause of the incompatibility is technical, which means they must have discontinued software support for some types of chip for commercial reasons. Maybe the chip manufacturer is a competitor? Or there's a licensing issue with the protocol that they've failed to resolve?
Does anyone know anything about how these chips are read out? Is there a single, standard protocol that's used? Or multiple, competing standards with patents involved, which might make multi-vendor support a legal headache?
I wonder if they set the code protection bits in the MCU...?