The Reliability of RFID

In extension to my discussions on the technical and physical limitations of RFID with Timo Arnall and Laurent Sciboz back at the second blogject workshop, I stumbled on silicon.com’s article Challenges for the smart tags outweigh the promise… that mentions:

“The reliability of chips is a dirty secret that is finally getting attention. Tags are only functioning at 80 per cent success rates,” she says, adding that antennas sometimes separate from their tags, and that even when the tags stay intact, tag readers are not always reliable. She cites the inability to read tags through metal or liquids (think of all those metal clothes racks in retail outlets) and interference from nylon conveyor belts.

Relation to my thesis: Keeping track of the limitation of ubiquitous technologies, in order to design with them