RFID vs. Bluetooth: Battle of Vehicle Trackers

U.S. dealers annually have sold 17 million vehicles or more for four years straight.

By any definition, that’s a lot of inventory. Which begs the question. How do dealerships keep track of these assets in a dynamic business where vehicles are frequently sold, serviced or otherwise moved?

Fortunately, we are living in the age of the Internet of Things. That makes the logistics of tracking and managing vehicle inventory easier and more accurate than ever before.

Already vast, the IoT is a rapidly growing network of devices or things connected to the Internet. Simply put, any stand-alone Internet-connected device that can be monitored or controlled from a remote location is considered part of IoT. This includes people-to-machine and machine-to-machine interactions.

Today, there are more connected devices than there are people. Research firm Gartner claims the IoT will include more than 26 billion connected devices by 2020.

New cars are “things” we refer to as inventory, and those things can be better managed with the right vehicle-locator technology. Two of the most common wireless technologies used are RFID and Bluetooth.

Radio-frequency Identification (RFID) systems communicate between an antenna or a reader and a tag attached to an object, while Bluetooth technology is used to communicate between two Bluetooth-compatible devices.

As inventory management technology evolved, RFID was the initial logical successor to barcode scanning. To work, RFID requires three components: tags, scanners (or readers) and a database for storing collected information. Tags include microchips that carry information about the scanned product or a serial number that matches to a record in the database.

There are two types of RFID: passive and active. Passive, the most common form used in warehousing, is technology without an internal power source that uses radio waves created by an RFID reader to send its signal.

Active RFID, on the other hand, uses a battery or some other dedicated power source.

Advantages of passive RFID include its relatively low per-tag cost, as well as its small size and light weight. Active RFID can transmit uninterrupted radio signals.

Perhaps the greatest disadvantage of an RFID system is in its overall cost, which is high compared to Bluetooth.

Although passive RFID tags may be inexpensive, the required RFID readers are not and can cost more than $5,000 each. When the antenna fails the entire system is paralyzed. RFID tags can be easily moved from a vehicle to spoof the system. In addition, RFID tags do not guarantee the location of the asset, merely the location of the tag.

For asset location, a version of Bluetooth known as Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is sometimes preferred. BLE consumes less energy and is cheaper than standard Bluetooth while maintaining the same range.

It also transmits data or receives instructions from other Bluetooth devices, and is compatible with a large installed base of web-connected devices.

Like RFID, Bluetooth comes in different flavors as well. Some systems use a simple tag system that can be used like RFID, while others can tie directly in with the automobiles technology and supply total information on the vehicle and guarantee the tag is with the vehicle.

BLE’s capability to communicate easily with smartphones, laptops and tablets and antenna systems separates it from RFID solutions.

Mark Sargeant

Think of it as a form of crowdsourcing.

Vehicle tracking systems ensure there are no surprises. The right car is always there when you need to show it. (Wards Industry Voices contributor Mark Sargeant.)

If you’re a dealer with hundreds or thousands of vehicles on your lot, the Internet of Things will make your life easier, no matter which wireless technology you choose.

Mark Sargeant is vice president-logistics and business development at AutoMap, an automotive inventory-tracking and auditing company. He can be reached at [email protected].