RFID tags
Tag families by frequency
| Family | Frequency | Typical range | Power | Typical uses |
|---|
| LF (low frequency) | 125–134 kHz | centimeters | passive | animal ear tags, access fobs that must work through water and tissue |
| HF (high frequency) | 13.56 MHz | centimeters | passive | contactless payment, access cards, NFC phone tags (NTAG family) |
| NFC | 13.56 MHz | a few centimeters | passive | pairing, posters and labels a phone taps on purpose |
| UHF RAIN (Gen2) | 860–960 MHz | meters, up to ~12 m | passive | retail apparel, pallets, cases, yard and warehouse tracking |
| Active (incl. BAP) | 433 MHz / 2.4 GHz | tens to hundreds of meters | battery | vehicle tracking, large yards, sensor telemetry |
Real UHF tags, with numbers
| RFID tag | Size (mm) | Max read range* |
Use case | Mass | Chip / memory |
|---|
| Confidex Survivor |
155 (139) x 26 x 14,5 | 18 m |
All-surface tag for logistics, transportation and yard management applications with top performance |
31 g | EPC Gen2 |
| Confidex Ironside |
51,5 x 47,5 x 10 | 9 m |
The most durable tag for challenging industrial asset management applications |
22 g | EPC Gen2, 240 bit EPC |
| Confidex Ironside Micro |
27 x 27 x 5,5 | 4 m on metal |
Compact on-metal tag where a full Ironside does not fit: tools, small parts, IT assets |
4 g | EPC Gen2 |
| Avery Dennison AD DogBone U9 |
94 x 24 | up to 12 m |
Long-range asset and pallet tag; the classic large-format dry inlay for cases and pallets |
under 1 g (inlay) | NXP UCODE 9, EPC 96/128 bit |
| Avery Dennison AD Burst M830 |
73 x 13,5 | up to 9 m |
Small-parcel tag: apparel hang tags, polybags, item-level retail where the label stays narrow |
under 1 g (inlay) | Impinj M830, EPC 96/128 bit |
* Best-case figures on the matching surface (metal tags measured
on metal) at maximum allowed reader power; walls, liquids and nearby
metal cut them down. On-metal designs carry their own ground plane —
a standard label inlay goes silent on metal, so match the tag family
to the mounting surface first and worry about range second.
Printing tags: what a ZPL printer needs
| Tag Type |
Printer |
Antenna Position |
Backfeed |
Read/Write Power |
| Monza R6 |
Zebra R110Xi4 |
A4 |
B4 |
27/27 |
Encoding rule of thumb: the EPC written must fit the chip — 24 hex
characters for 96-bit EPC, 32 for 128-bit. Count the characters
before blaming the antenna, and keep printed text and barcodes
inside the printable area of the specific inlay (see the sizes
above, not the nominal label size).
