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How to Choose RFID Tag

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

by Adi Tedjasaputra

The variety of RFID tags available in the market often confuses the end-users in deploying RFID systems. Many end-users go from one RFID vendor to another and compare RFID tags based on specifications and prices. For the last couple of years alone, more than 90% of the RFID end-users contacting RFID Asia basically asked the same thing: Tell us about RFID products! When you are in the process of choosing the right RFID tags, the following excerpt from "RFID Asia Guidelines for Choosing RFID Tags" may be valuable for you.

While RFID Asia does not sell or manufacture RFID products, we do provide RFID professional services through Consulting, Research, Business Representation and Advertising. We help companies make the best investment decisions on RFID technology and products. We also plan to open a new RFID kiosk that will become one-stop RFID store to help companies across various industry verticals, government agencies, research organisations and universities in Asia Pacific to learn, select, try out and buy a range of RFID products and services from various RFID vendors. The kiosk will link up RFID vendors and consumers alike to conduct trading and training on RFID products and services.

If you are one of the end-users planning to embark on RFID system deployment, the following guidelines may ease the process of choosing RFID tag:

1. Define Your Goal and Requirements Clearly
RFID Goal and Requirements.

Without a properly defined goal, you will be easily distracted by many tempting offers and marketing gimmicks. If you need RFID tags for pilot, define your pilot project goal clearly. Your pilot project goal may solve the attendance problem at your office, secure a certain area of your warehouse, or only to know how a wireless automatic identification technology works. After you clearly define your goal, the next thing to remember is to keep your requirements simple. For example, when your application only requires read-only (RO) RFID tags, do not be tempted to choose Read-and-Write (R/W) RFID tags only because they have more “features”, unless you already know that you will need them later.

2. Source Carefully
RFID Source.

There are thousands of RFID vendors in the market. Some are good, some are bad. Some are reliable, some are not. It is good if you can get a vendor referral from a source you can trust. If you cannot get any referral and unfamiliar with a vendor, ask relevant questions to the vendor upfront. Make sure details such as pricing, delivery, payment, dead tags, return policy, tag life time, etc. are not left out. The more you know in advance, less surprises you will experience.

3. Standard is The King
RFID Standard and Harmonization.

As an evolving technology, the change of RFID standards is inevitable. As standards evolve, RFID tags and related hardware could become perishable. Upgrade option is always the best solution. Look for vendors who offer tag upgrade for reusable RFID tags. The good news is that almost everyone in the RFID community agrees that the harmonization of global RFID protocol and spectrum allocation is as important as regional harmonization. When you deploy an RFID system, make sure that your system conforms to the regional regulation and interoperable with other systems that interact with your RFID system. Whatever standard you use, make sure it is ISO-compliant.

4. Price is Not Everything
RFID Goal and Requirements.

The lure of low RFID tag price often results in a disappointment at the end. Many will find out sooner or later that 5-cent RFID tags do not exist in the market. If your RFID application is based on the 5-cent price assumption, it is better to postpone your project indefinitely or find another business case that can justify your RFID application on different price level.

5. Try and Evaluate
RFID Goal and Requirements.

Before your RFID tags arrive, you need to prepare a try-out system in place to evaluate your RFID tag performance. It is the best if you can set up a test environment in the actual site where the RFID tags will be used. Depending on the sophistication of your application, budget and time, you can simply set up a simple read and write test or set up a sophisticated test environment using a real-time spectrum analyzer.

The writer is the Founder of RFID Asia - The Prominent RFID Community in Asia.

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Labels: business, payment, project, rfid, tag, technology