I first thought it was a camera but there was no point, After some searching I found that these things could communicate optical,, so that might be it, if so how do they work?
this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2023
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The top white rectangle is a multi-color LED (presumably RGB). Can't make out what's in the bottom, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was some form of light sensor for (literally) flashing new information onto the tag.
Yup. They use ceiling-mounted IR transmitters that are a bit like a big multi-directional TV remote control.
I'm pretty certain these ones use visible light, with ceiling-mounted LEDs. They flash at specific frequencies that are imperceptible to the human eye, but can be interpreted by the electronic shelf label. Here's a whitepaper explaining the concept.
Source: for 20 or so years, I worked in technology for some of Australia's largest retailers, and we tested a lot of these sorts of things in our labs. Very cool stuff.
The light is visible, the flashing isn't.