NZ considering $100M contact tracing ‘CovidCard’
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NZ considering $100M contact tracing ‘CovidCard’
1–10 of 36 posts
Re: NZ considering $100M contact tracing ‘CovidCard’
#2Kiwi here, I belive this is either snake oil or a conceptual idea rather than a product. The media are touting it as credit card sized device, but with a battery it would need to be much thicker.
Here in lockdown we are allowed to go for a walk or cycle. Potentially this card could register thousands of contacts.
Re: NZ considering $100M contact tracing ‘CovidCard’
#3Kiwi here, I belive this is either snake oil or a conceptual idea rather than a product. The media are touting it as credit card sized device, but with a battery it would need to be much thicker. Here in lockdown we are allowed to go for a walk or cycle. Potentially this card could register thousands of contacts.
Yeah - I design this sort of thing and I can't understand how the power management of this thing works - battery life has to be a month or so (or it's a cm thick).
Remember that when you're talking at GHz (ie BT) you have to keep your receive PLLs powered up to receive data, that's ~1/2 the power requirements of short distance transmitting
Re: NZ considering $100M contact tracing ‘CovidCard’
#4Kiwi here, I belive this is either snake oil or a conceptual idea rather than a product. The media are touting it as credit card sized device, but with a battery it would need to be much thicker. Here in lockdown we are allowed to go for a walk or cycle. Potentially this card could register thousands of contacts.
Yeah - I design this sort of thing and I can't understand how the power management of this thing works - battery life has to be a month or so (or it's a cm thick). Remember that when you're talking at GHz (ie BT) you have to keep your receive PLLs powered up to receive data, that's ~1/2 the power requirements of short distance transmitting
Some media here have claimed a 6 months to a year of battery life. I am very skeptical.
Re: NZ considering $100M contact tracing ‘CovidCard’
#5Kiwi here, I belive this is either snake oil or a conceptual idea rather than a product. The media are touting it as credit card sized device, but with a battery it would need to be much thicker. Here in lockdown we are allowed to go for a walk or cycle. Potentially this card could register thousands of contacts.
Yeah - I design this sort of thing and I can't understand how the power management of this thing works - battery life has to be a month or so (or it's a cm thick). Remember that when you're talking at GHz (ie BT) you have to keep your receive PLLs powered up to receive data, that's ~1/2 the power requirements of short distance transmitting
You don't need to transmit or receive continuously.
Re: NZ considering $100M contact tracing ‘CovidCard’
#6The big problem with all radio based contact tracing solutions is the receiver. Receivers use at a minimum several mW of power. A typical Bluetooth low energy receiver will use about 50mW so will drain a coin cell battery in a day. Bluetooth low energy saves energy by transmitting for very short periods of time so transmit power is low but receiver power can be high. Even asking most consumers to leave their phone's Bluetooth recovery on all day is a big ask because of the impact on battery life.
Schemes could be designed to better synchronise receivers and transmitters so the receiver can be switched off most of the time but this currently can't be done with Bluetooth.
Re: NZ considering $100M contact tracing ‘CovidCard’
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah - I design this sort of thing and I can't understand how the power management of this thing works - battery life has to be a month or so (or it's a cm thick). Remember that when you're talking at GHz (ie BT) you have to keep your receive PLLs powered up to receive data, that's ~1/2 the power requirements of short distance transmitting
You don't need to transmit or receive continuously.
If you have two cards that are going to talk to each other one needs to be listening when the other is transmitting, if they're off 95% of the time (like the stuff I design) then 95% of the time someone transmits no one will be listening.
You can try and do something smart around synchonising wakeup times nationwide, but that is genuinely hard (and requires a xtal clock to be awake at all times, also burning power)
Re: NZ considering $100M contact tracing ‘CovidCard’
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah - I design this sort of thing and I can't understand how the power management of this thing works - battery life has to be a month or so (or it's a cm thick). Remember that when you're talking at GHz (ie BT) you have to keep your receive PLLs powered up to receive data, that's ~1/2 the power requirements of short distance transmitting
Some media here have claimed a 6 months to a year of battery life. I am very skeptical.
Exactly - I'm not saying it can't be done, just that I'm highly highly skeptical
Re: NZ considering $100M contact tracing ‘CovidCard’
#9"Without fast case isolation after restrictions ease, modelling shows that the virus could spread exponentially and ultimately kill 100,000 Kiwis."
The left out the word "unreasonable". "Unresaonable modelling shows..."
See the Tailrisk analysis: http://www.tailrisk.co.nz/documents/Corona.pdf
Re: NZ considering $100M contact tracing ‘CovidCard’
#10The conspiracy theorists almost had it right. It’s not tinfoil hats we need, it’s tinfoil bags and pockets.