{"id":1470,"date":"2025-06-06T08:26:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-06T08:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.indtrac.com\/?p=1470"},"modified":"2025-06-17T10:39:42","modified_gmt":"2025-06-17T10:39:42","slug":"is-active-rfid-same-as-ble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indtrac.com\/?p=1470","title":{"rendered":"Is Active RFID same as BLE?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"font-size: 120%;\">Quick Answer: No, Active RFID is different to BLE although both are RF technologies. Both are used for RTLS but they are not the same.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1486\" src=\"https:\/\/www.indtrac.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/1749192147523.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1024\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.indtrac.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/1749192147523.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.indtrac.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/1749192147523-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/www.indtrac.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/1749192147523-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/www.indtrac.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/1749192147523-768x768.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/p>\n<h4 style=\"font-size: 120%;\">Here is a quick reckoner:<\/h4>\n<table style=\"border: 1px solid black; border-collapse: collapse;\">\n<thead style=\"font-size: 120%; border: 1px solid black; border-collapse: collapse;\">\n<tr>\n<th>Feature<\/th>\n<th>Active RFID Tag<\/th>\n<th>BLE Asset Tag<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n<tbody style=\"font-size: 120%;\">\n<tr>\n<td><strong>Read Range<\/strong><\/td>\n<td>Up to 100 meters or more<\/td>\n<td>less than 100 meters<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong>Frequency Band<\/strong><\/td>\n<td>Typically 433\/900 MHz or 2.4 GHz<\/td>\n<td>ISM 2.4 GHz<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong>Battery Life<\/strong><\/td>\n<td>3\u20135 years<\/td>\n<td>2\u20135 years<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong>Data Transmission<\/strong><\/td>\n<td>Continuous (beacon) or on-demand (transponder)<\/td>\n<td>Periodic beacons<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong>Infrastructure<\/strong><\/td>\n<td>Requires dedicated RFID readers and antennas<\/td>\n<td>Can leverage existing Bluetooth infrastructure<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong>Cost<\/strong><\/td>\n<td>Tag is cheaper but higher reader costs<\/td>\n<td>Magnitude lower per tag and infrastructure costs<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong>Environmental Impact<\/strong><\/td>\n<td>433 MHz less affected by physical barriers<\/td>\n<td>2.4 GHz is more crowded and more susceptible to interference<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong>Integration<\/strong><\/td>\n<td>Often requires specialized systems<\/td>\n<td>Easier integration with smartphones and tablets<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p style=\"font-size: 120%;\">RFID Reader is lot more expensive compared BLE gateway, which means you can implement a BLE based RTLS solution at a fractional cost of Active RFID solution. Also BLE is a lot more commoditized, which eliminates the fear of vendor lock-in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Quick Answer: No, Active RFID is different to BLE although both are RF technologies. Both are used for RTLS but they are not the same. Here is a quick reckoner: Feature Active RFID Tag BLE Asset Tag Read Range Up to 100 meters or more less than 100 meters Frequency Band Typically 433\/900 MHz or [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63,18,51],"tags":[68,22,55,21,52],"class_list":["post-1470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ble-rtls","category-healthcare-rtls","category-rfid-rtls","tag-active-rfid","tag-ble","tag-indtrac-rtls","tag-rfid","tag-uwb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indtrac.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indtrac.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indtrac.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indtrac.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indtrac.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1470"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.indtrac.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1494,"href":"https:\/\/www.indtrac.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1470\/revisions\/1494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indtrac.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indtrac.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indtrac.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}