Are There Any Institutes That Standardize the Cost of RFID Tags and Readers?

Published: February 22, 2013

Or is it based on competitive pricing, order sizes, data-holding capacity and other parameters? I am aware of the difference between active and passive tags, but not about inter-category pricing.

—Rohini S Vangury

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Rohini,

There are no standards for pricing. What determines a reader’s price are volume, performance and features. Obviously, companies discount for large orders. There is also a difference in reader performance from one model to the next. Some have greater “sensitivity,” which means they can detect faint signals coming from the tag. That results in more consistent reads, in some cases, and the ability to interrogate tags from further away.

The key determinant is which features are built into a reader. The device might have two, four or eight antenna ports. It might have greater or less memory to store information. It might run the Linux operating system or some other OS. And it might come with a water-resistant housing. These features will all have an effect on price.

—Mark Roberti, Founder and Editor, RFID Journal