Staff Already Wear It Every Day — Why Not Let It Locate? Seeking ID Card and E-Paper Vendors to Co-Create Positioning Badges

Q: Are you asking us to manufacture for P-Square?

No — the opposite. You own the hardware and P-Square provides the positioning algorithm and back-end software, with both parties selling together or applying jointly for government grants. P-Square is an algorithm and software company; volume manufacturing, yield, certification and channels are your expertise, and we neither interfere nor intend to do it ourselves.

The biggest obstacle to a positioning project is rarely the technology — it is asking people to wear one more thing. Building positioning into the ID badge staff already wear removes that objection. P-Square seeks ID card, smart card and e-paper display module vendors to co-develop positioning badges: you own the hardware, we provide the positioning algorithm.

2. Industry Focus: A Mature Category Abroad, Still a Gap in Taiwan

Abroad, positioning is already built into what people already wear

In hospitals and long-term care facilities across Europe and North America, wearable positioning badges are a mature category — a nurse's ID badge is simultaneously a location tag and a duress button, and an infant or dementia resident's anti-wandering wristband is simultaneously the sensing endpoint of a geofence. The shared design philosophy is simple: do not ask the user to wear one more thing; build positioning into what they already wear.

What this means for Taiwanese vendors

The carrier already exists: everyone in Taiwanese hospitals, factories and campuses has an ID badge — but it is only an ID badge.
Lowest adoption friction: no change in user behaviour, so it is the form of positioning a site accepts most readily.
One platform, several markets: the same hardware platform extends to hospitals, long-term care, factories, campuses and schools.

The gap: what has a screen cannot locate, and what locates has no screen

There is a clear gap in the market today. E-paper ID badges can change what they display and are extremely power efficient, but do not offer positioning. Existing positioning badges locate well and are power efficient, but have no screen. The few wearables that do have a screen use backlit displays and therefore draw considerably more power, requiring frequent charging — impractical where a device must be worn continuously.

Why it is feasible now

Module miniaturisation: UWB and BLE modules continue to shrink in size and power draw, and now fit a card-sized carrier.
Bluetooth 6.0 Channel Sounding: phase-based ranging replaces RSSI estimation, giving precise ranging at low power.
E-paper's power profile: it draws power only when the display changes, which matches a location tag's long-standby requirement precisely.

3. Development Pain Points for Hardware Vendors, and What P-Square Offers

ID card and smart card vendors have complete manufacturing, certification and channel capability; what is missing is the positioning algorithm and field validation experience.

What P-Square provides:

Proven tag reference specifications, so you do not start from zero: P-Square's BLE 5.0 tags are already in production: label type Φ39 × 15.5 mm (CR2477, about one year of runtime) and wristband type Φ35.9 × 11 mm (CR2032, about four months), certified to CE, FCC, RoHS and REACH. These serve directly as design references for a positioning badge.
Accuracy in partitioned environments decides whether a project can be signed off: The most common requirement for badge positioning is knowing which room someone is in. Conventional positioning degrades as partitions increase; P-Square's AI Fingerprinting algorithm combined with structured map data improves accuracy by over 30% versus conventional trilateration, reliably determining which building, floor and room.
Hardware independent, no chipset lock-in: The same algorithm supports BLE 4.0 / 5.0 / 6.0 Channel Sounding, Wi-Fi RSSI and UWB (ToA / PDOA), so you choose the chipset to suit cost and accuracy targets. P-Square does not interfere in your BOM decisions.
Field proven, not a laboratory result: The technology is deployed in healthcare providers, long-term care facilities, semiconductor plants, automotive facilities and construction sites, covering clinical duress, geofenced wandering prevention for dementia residents and cleanroom personnel duress. The supporting back-end functions — restricted zones, historical records, heat maps and trajectory replay — all run in real deployments.

4. Flexible Partnership Models: Co-Creating a Win-Win

Whether you want to leave the existing ID badge in place or build the next generation of badge outright, there is a matching model:

Partnership model	Who it suits	What it involves
Add-on positioning for existing badges	Badge holder, card carrier and lanyard vendors	The positioning module takes the form of a card holder or sleeve worn over the existing badge, so the site does not have to reissue cards — the lowest possible adoption friction.
Co-developed positioning ID card	Smart card and RFID card vendors	Integrate the positioning module into the card body so one card handles access control, identification and positioning, extending to duress and fall detection.
E-paper positioning badge co-creation	E-paper module and display driver vendors	Combine e-paper's power-efficient display with positioning to fill the gap between screens that cannot locate and locators that have no screen. The tag vendor owns the hardware, P-Square provides the algorithm, and both sell together.
Joint government project applications	Listed and pre-IPO companies, card majors, system integrators	Apply jointly for government positioning, AI, smart healthcare and smart-facility grants, reducing R&D risk.

5. Frequently Asked Questions

Our customers have already issued ID badges — surely they cannot replace them all?

They do not need to. That is exactly what the add-on model solves: the positioning module takes the form of a card holder or sleeve worn over the existing badge, so no reissue is required and adoption friction is minimal. Integrating into the card body is only recommended when a customer is due to reissue cards anyway.

How long does the badge battery last? Does it need charging daily?

P-Square's existing BLE tags run about a year on a coin cell at one advertisement per second; the waterproof type runs about three months because it is smaller. The advertising interval is adjustable between 100 ms and 5000 ms, so lengthening it extends runtime. This is also why we consider e-paper the right display technology — it draws power only when the display changes, so it does not undermine overall runtime.

Can badge positioning resolve down to which room someone is in?

Yes, and this is precisely our core technology. Conventional positioning degrades as partitions increase; AI Fingerprinting combined with structured map data improves accuracy by over 30% versus conventional trilateration, determining which building, floor and room a person is in, and whether they are inside or outside a doorway.

Are you asking us to manufacture for P-Square?

No — the opposite. You own the hardware and P-Square provides the positioning algorithm and back-end software, with both parties selling together or applying jointly for government grants. P-Square is an algorithm and software company; volume manufacturing, yield, certification and channels are your expertise, and we neither interfere nor intend to do it ourselves.

Is the Taiwanese market large enough to justify the development?

Taiwan alone is limited, which is exactly why we advocate co-creation rather than a buyer-supplier relationship — both parties share development and channel cost. The same hardware platform extends to hospitals, long-term care, factories, campuses and schools; and if you already have overseas channels, positioning is a very direct differentiator for an existing product line.

Discuss a Partnership

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