RFID Journal Staff asked 10 years ago We are looking for short-range passive tags and readers (not handheld) for use on electric cables. Can you recommend which ones we should buy?
—Name withheld
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It would be difficult to recommend tags and readers without knowing more information about your deployment. For instance, what do you mean by "short-range"? If you mean within 1 foot, a passive low-frequency (LF) or high-frequency (HF) tag would work fine. If short-range means 10 feet, then you would need a passive ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) transponder. Another issue is the sheathing of the electric cables. If there is a lot of insulation, that will prevent the metal wire within the cable from detuning the tag antenna and preventing the tag from being read.
My recommendation would be to hire a good systems integrator who can look at the locations where you want to read the cable, the cable material and other factors, and make a recommendation about whether to use LF, HF or UHF. The integrator can test a variety of tag types (regular smart labels and on-metal tags, for example) and then choose the one that will do the job at the lowest cost. If you need a recommendation for a systems integrator, you can e-mail editor@rfidjournal.com.
—Mark Roberti, Founder and Editor, RFID Journal
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