Venture Research Adds More Intelligence to Its Surface Reader

Passive ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID alone does not always provide the reliability or read range required to track the movements of individuals and items within a large space. Active RFID tags (typically 433 MHz, 915 MHz or Wi-Fi) can be expensive to deploy when many tags are needed, while Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons are not designed to identify the location of a person or an object with a high degree of granularity. Bluetooth beacons are low-cost, however, and because they have a battery, they can be used in environments in which personnel or materials need to be read from up to 100 feet away, according to John Baker, Venture Research's president.