- As more industries adopt RFID and other wireless technologies to digitize goods, they’re finding a one-size-fits-all model doesn’t always work.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is reshaping how the world works. Fueled by macro trends— digital transformation, supply chain modernization, and rising consumer demand for transparency— IoT adoption is accelerating across industries. Businesses and consumers alike are reaping the benefits, from increased efficiency and visibility to improved product safety, quality, and sustainability.
At the core of IoT’s value is the ability to digitize the physical world. Giving products, packages, materials, and environments a unique digital identity enables them to generate real-time data about their location, condition, status, and authentication.
This typically starts with the integration of a wireless tag or inlay— powered by RFID or BLE— which bridges the gap between physical assets and digital systems.
More Nuance Approach
In the early phases of adoption, standard RFID inlays were designed for straightforward use cases— most notably in retail apparel. Tags attached to hang tags or product packaging were key components of the early RFID solutions that delivered rapid ROI through improved inventory accuracy and shrink reduction. These standard designs became the backbone of the industry and helped fuel exponential growth, with the RFID market expected to reach $29 billion by 2032.
But as IoT expands into more complex product categories and use cases, standard tags alone are not able to deliver the necessary RFID performance or easily attach to product and packaging designs. Many of these items are smaller, softer, denser, oddly shaped, disposable, or otherwise difficult to digitize with off-the-shelf components.
In short, they don’t fit the mold. Today’s reality is that not everything can be digitized with a standard inlay. And not everything should be.
As IoT matures, so does the need for more tailored, application-specific, specialized designs— solutions that account for physical constraints, material interactions, and real-world environmental conditions. Specialized IoT is now essential to unlocking digital identity for the harder-to-digitize edge of the physical world.
Specialized IoT Market
There are several scenarios in which standard, off-the-shelf IoT solutions don’t fit the bill— and where specialized IoT is now required. Among them:
What’s being digitized has a unique form factor or shape. Innovation in pharmaceutical digitization has already transformed how larger units— like pallets of injectable vaccines— can be digitized. Individual vials and prefilled syringes present a different set of challenges: they’re much smaller than the overall box, often rounded, long and narrow, and made of glass. Yet pharmaceutical companies and healthcare providers want to digitize such products at the unit level, for patient safety, inventory management, proper handling, and other reasons. Through specialized IoT, they can.
What’s being digitized is not RF-friendly. Many factors can impact the effectiveness of the wireless radio frequency (RF) communications used in RFID solutions. RF energy interacts unpredictably with liquids, for example, or has trouble penetrating metal. So, if wireless tags are used to digitize boxes of liquid laundry detergent or mineral water, or they’re affixed to metal shipping containers, they may have trouble communicating with IoT readers. Moreover, if the products being digitized are handled under extreme environmental conditions— frozen food, for instance— it could negatively impact performance. None of these precludes effective IoT digitization, but solutions must be engineered properly.
The digital data sought goes beyond identification and location. Finally, companies today are seizing on the power of IoT to do more than just tell them where their products are. Increasingly, they want more granular data, like temperature and humidity, to ensure proper handling from manufacturer or producer to store. And the IoT industry has responded. Today, a wireless tag can be integrated with sensors to generate even more useful data and capabilities to create end customer experiences. These inlays can be adapted to the various form factors and RF environments discussed earlier.
Specialized IoT: Built for the Real World
Because the scenarios are often unique to different companies and industries and use cases, the IoT designs are too— at first. Essentially, an IoT engineering and manufacturing company like Identiv gathers the unique requirements— what needs digitization, what is the use case, what materials are involved, size, adhesive surfaces, storage temperature, etc.— and designs an inlay with the appropriate processor, memory, wireless antenna, sensors, materials, and form factor.
Often, the design process starts with a proven standard inlay or tag that’s customized for a specific application, which helps to speed up the design and development process. In other cases, a specialized IoT inlay first created for one company proves so effective that it’s adopted more broadly.
Take, for example, an IoT inlay embedded in plastic shipping crates used to track food throughout the supply chain. These crates are reused for years and cleaned and sanitized after every trip, so the inlay must be exceptionally durable. That same rugged design can then be applied to other use cases with similar durability demands, demonstrating how a specialized solution can evolve into a standard.
Intelligence Offered
Other industries, such as luxury wine, have begun adopting specialized IoT solutions to address category-specific challenges— measuring fill levels, ensuring chain-of-custody integrity, and combating counterfeiting. These high-value, high-stakes use cases are applicable across many other high-end product categories that also require tracking, monitoring, and trust.
At this stage in the evolution of IoT, there are many unique challenges and opportunities for innovation. Specialized IoT solutions provide digital IDs for a range of different objects that cannot be served by standard inlays, allowing them to connect with cloud services and making them intelligent. What companies do with all that intelligence— that’s the exciting part.
