UHF Tags Enter the Timing Race

In addition to timing, Racetimer provides racers access to photos of themselves taken at split times and the finish line. Each runner's digital photo file names are associated with that person's tag ID, so that the photos can be displayed at the finish line, sorted by bib number. Racetimer also provides a messaging service enabling racers' friends and family to stay abreast of their progress on the course. To do this, the company sends a text message to a list of cell phone numbers provided by each racer prior to the race. The message includes the location of the most recent read zone the racer has passed, as well as that entrant's running time. At the finish area, large digital screens display each runner's name and finish time, recorded as they cross the finish line.

Race organizers using LF tags generally collect them from racers at the end of each race, Skoeld says, to be reused for other races. Since these tags are embedded in a rugged plastic housing and can cost up to $7 apiece, a race organizer loses revenue when racers fail to return them—though many do, according to Alien's VP of marketing, Ronny Haraldsvik.

Racetimer creates read zones at a course's beginning and end, and at split-time zones in between, by suspending a line of antennas above and along the side of the course.

The Alien tags Racetimer utilizes are not reused; rather they remain attached to the race bibs, which most racers keep as mementos. Skoeld says the UHF tags cost Racetimer considerably less than half of what it would pay for LF tags, but declines to offer an exact price. Most UHF inlays embedded in shipping labels used in supply chain applications currently cost roughly 15 cents each in large quantities.

The dominant timing product in large racing circuits is ChampionChip's timekeeping system. This system utilizes a passive LF (134.2 kHz) Texas Instruments (TI) tag compliant with the ISO 11784 and 11785 standards, along with interrogator antennas built into mats laid across finish lines and at points along the course where organizers opt to track split times.

Racetimer isn't the only company competing for a piece of the race-timing industry, however. In March, IPICO Sports entered the market with a dual-frequency passive tag that operates in both the LF and high-frequency (15.56 MHz) ranges. The IPICO tag was used in one of the largest annual U.S. running races, the BoulderBolder (see IPICO Enters Race for RFID Sports Timing.)