Fantastic! I appreciate the heads-up. The open source ThingMagic drivers would be very handy.
It has crossed my mind to try integrating a single-chip reader but I'm unsure of what the FCC requirements would be for selling it as part of a commercial product. It's a little surprising that there hasn't been a kickstarter type of project to build an open source reader chip and get it FCC spec'ed.
The AMS chip itself is probably FCC compliant, since the output power is so low (10-13dBM, IIRC). The problem arises when you add an external PA to get the full 30dBm output power permitted by the FCC; then you need to re-certify.
It has crossed my mind to try integrating a single-chip reader but I'm unsure of what the FCC requirements would be for selling it as part of a commercial product. It's a little surprising that there hasn't been a kickstarter type of project to build an open source reader chip and get it FCC spec'ed.