During a recent technical training session for our sales team, Rajant Chief Technology Officer Paul Helhake dusted off a little bit of Rajant history to share with the group. Two of the original BreadCrumb portable mesh transceivers (pictured above) were opened up, and passed around.
The original BreadCrumb, used primarily to demonstrate the concept of Rajant technology, was followed by the model on the right, which was smaller in size, and featured a number of improvements in both performance and durability. Now, as we prepare to ship the newest model – the BreadCrumb ME4 – it’s interesting to compare the evolution of the technology and hard not to marvel at the advances incorporated into the latest offering.
The two early BreadCrumbs pictured here were certainly “rugged,” and able to withstand some fairly harsh conditions. But the physical abuse placed on BreadCrumbs in both mining and military applications – constant vibration, shock, temperature extremes – goes far beyond that in any other application. So, as the advantages of Rajant’s approach to mesh networking gained popularity in such challenging applications, our engineers sought to continually improve the design and performance of subsequent models.
The BreadCrumb ME4 is the latest product of this evolution. With two radios, 802.11 a/b/g and n compatibility, gigabit Ethernet, a faster processor, smaller form factor, and competitive pricing, this newest BreadCrumb raises the performance bar quite high for emerging wireless technologies. Couple these qualities with improvements in the physical design, and this newest BreadCrumb is the ideal network node for a wide – and growing – range of applications.
The demands of mining have taught us some valuable lessons over the past 11 years, and have challenged our technical experts to continually seek ways to make our products stronger, fast, more reliable, and easy to deploy and use.
The biggest takeaway from our experience in mining can be summarized quite simply: Extreme conditions require extreme reliability. We’re looking forward to showcasing this game-changing new BreadCrumb, along with Version 11 of our BC|Commander network management software and InstaMesh routing technology, at the upcoming MINExpo International in Las Vegas. If you’re attending, stop by and say hello, we’ll be in the South Hall, booth #21077.