I managed to get my hands on a Violet Mir:ror RFID reader this week (I briefly reviewed this in April) to evaluate it for use in teaching and possibly personal project use. While I still maintain that this is an interesting product which encourages it’s users to imagine how they could use this (and it does come with a variety of working suggestions) testing was for my purposes disappointing and here’s why - my reasons are threefold.

1. Firstly the Violet website and the instructions that come with the Mir:ror state that you need a permanent broadband internet connection, in fact the instructions that come with the Mir:ror state that the internet connection is necessary to fully use the device, suggesting some things are possible without an internet connection. This is not the case, without an internet connection you simply can not use the device as every time you connect it to the computer it registers with Violet’s website - no connection = impossible to register. This isn’t too problematic, why after all would you not have an internet connection when the device is for the internet of things? What is more problematic is that the device makes its connection to the internet through a helper application called Mirware and this can not be configured to work through a firewall.
2. My second issue is again with the Mirware software and what it does when an RFID tag (called zstamp for the Mir:ror) is detected or removed from sensor range. If you watch the video below you’ll notice that when the zstamp (rabbit zstamp in this case) is detected there is a little popup dialog on screen (bottom right hand corner) and a sound (the second sound on the video). This is useful for feedback but can not be disabled in the applications preferences. The popup is set to appear above applications (high priority window) so even if you have masked off the screen with a fullscreen application it will still appear above that. The sound is similarly impossible to disable.
3. Last issue is with the device itself. The first sound you hear on the video comes from the device. It has no switch to mute this or to possibly turn off the flashing light.

Below is a video showing how the device works, looks and sounds.

All of this is a real shame, a consumer-based RFID product is always going to have a limited appeal as the author here notes, but it seems foolish to restrict through a lack of configuration options (all of the above is to do with configuration) what potentially could be an open piece of hardware for endless uses. Without firewall configuration you would not be able to use the device in any administrated network such as universities, companies, conference venues, institutions etc. Without preferences and/or physical switches to enable disable features students wishing to leverage the device for project work, artists creating art works or anyone employing it for presentation or teaching purposes simply won’t.

A final note, it seems that Violet, the French company who make the Mir:ror, Nabaztag and related products have gone bankrupt and are in the process of being taken over by Mindscape, a French CD-ROM / Game publisher. The Nabaztags future seems safe (in fact if you look at Mindscapes French homepage you can see they already list the Nabaztag) and there has been a user led ’save the Nabaztag campaign‘ but unfortunately their is no mention of the Mir:ror so the future seems very bleak for this device.

I’m curious if anyone out there has tested the Touchatag device (formally Tikitag). It’s in the same price range and works similarly to Mir:ror (i.e. through a web service), does it have the same limitations?