Recent webinar talks through ambient IoT and RFID gen two

As part of a series looking to demystify ambient IoT, hosted by global industry alliance AIM, Jeanne Duckett, Senior Manager of Food Traceability and Transparency for Avery Dennison and Steve Statler, Chief Marketing Officer at Wiliot came together to discuss ambient IoT and RFID (radio frequency identification) generation (gen) two.

Ambient IoT versus RFID gen two

Ambient IoT, Statler explained, “is another toolkit for people that are architecting solutions”. He noted that Wiliot referred to ambient IoT as the market in which they operate. “We didn’t invent the term ambient computing,” he said.

Ambient IoT’s history can be linked back to the standards organisation 3GPP, a concept they coined. It relates to an ecosystem of devices and sensors which operate usually without human intervention. Wiliot uses its own IoT Pixels, low-cost tags, which are powered by harvesting frequency energy.

“Ambient IoT is expanding on what RFID has traditionally done,” explained Duckett. “RFID gen two has traditionally attached a unique identification to an inanimate object to be connected to the Internet.” 

“We made over 100 million tags last year,” Statler added. “It’s a drop in the ocean compared to RFID gen two, but today it’s essentially battery-free Bluetooth.”

Duckett shared that the RFID technology is older, dating back to World War Two. “It really came to the forefront in the late 90s, early 2000s, with Dr Kevin Ashton when he coined the term Internet of Things,” she explained.

RFID tags are classified as passive radios and only power up when it comes within a particular radio spectrum, between the 902-928 frequency bands. 

“These tags are widely deployed,” said Duckett. “They’re used primarily in the consumer goods supply chain and are rapidly moving into the food supply chain as well as healthcare and pharmaceutical.”

Major differences 

One talking point from the webinar was how ambient IoT compares with RFID gen two. Statler was keen to stress that one technology wasn’t necessarily superior to the other: “I don’t think we should be saying this thing is better, this is newer. Or, this is more established. It’s better. That’s like arguing a wrench is better than a hammer … The secret is knowing when to use it.” 

One way in which the two technologies differ is in the design. The ambient IoT tags have three antennas, two of which are harvesting antennas. “One harvests energy at 915 megahertz, the same frequency that’s used by RFID. This tag can get energy from existing RFID infrastructure,” Statler said. “It also harvests energy at 2.4 gigahertz. We can harvest energy from Bluetooth.” 

Ambient IoT tags, despite not having a battery, are classified by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as an active radio, another difference from RFID tags. “What makes it active?” queried Statler. “There’s a tiny capacitor built in here [the tag], so small you can see it. This is unlike conventional RFID that takes a strong signal from a reader and then reflects back a slightly weaker signal. This takes weak signals from devices that weren’t designed for auto ID and it accumulates the energy over time.”

This was a “fundamental difference”, Statler said.

RFID tags have been around for longer and as a consequence, are more cost optimised compared with ambient IoT tags. Because of this, “if you have extremely low cost items … if it’s an item of apparel, even socks, you could afford to put an RFID gen two tag on item level, whereas ambient IoT tends to be on higher value items,” he explained.

This went back to what Statler was outlining near the beginning of the webinar, that one technology isn’t ultimately better than the other, it has to fit the use case. If it’s a low cost item and it’s going to be in a few locations, such as stores, RFID tags work well. If the item is higher value, however, then ambient IoT tags are a nice fit.

“There are some basic similarities between the two technologies, they’re both battery free,” Duckett said. 

“The key point is that the origins [of these technologies] are very similar,” Statler added. “It’[s the same vision and I think it’s a huge opportunity for everyone that’s developed auto ID skills and RFID skills.” 

Conclusion

The markets of both technologies are expected to grow, Duckett and Statler said. “By 2028 it’s anticipated we’ll be shipping 100 to 115 billion RFID tags a year,” she said. “It’s a tremendous amount of growth.” 

“Both technologies are on a steep growth curve, which is great for everyone that’s involved in this industry,” Statler put succinctly. “Apparel has huge momentum for RFID gen two, ambient IoT will continue to have a lower volume as we focus on the higher value items.” 

“I wouldn’t abandon your RAIN RFID,” Staler added. “I think this auto ID space and when you start joining up the home, you’ll be able to amortise the costs over many, many more use cases.”

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