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?
Some of the stores near me have LEDs in the tags so if you’re looking for something and ask an employee they can look it up and turn on the light.
The price tag then flashes so you can find it easier.
A store near me (Canadian Tire) has them linked to their app - you find what you want in the app, go to the aisle listed and tap “find this item” and the LED flashes.
That’s a great feature, because their employees are fucking useless for knowing where things are.
Well most likely it won’t have any left on the shelf, especially if it were something listed in the weekly flyer.
My off the cuff thought is that it may be used to change the content on the tags. Show it a specific QR code and it updates the content.
They cynical side of wants to believe that it’s being used to gather shopping analytics and correlate it to facial data.
Probably an IR receiver module or photodiode.