Most asset tracking projects eventually run into the question of what radio protocol to base their hardware around. This is not an "easy choice" nor a "there's only one better" piece, but a rundown based on actual trade-offs by deployment. Choosing based on hype tends to cost companies six-figure-plus deployments one year down the line, when those low per-device radio choices become glaringly expensive operationally.
The Fundamental Trade-off is one of the big three, which don’t improve simultaneously: range, power and bandwidth. I’ll dive into the relative differences along the key trade-offs by use-case below. The fundamental trade-off for all of these technologies revolves around maximising range, minimising power consumption and providing enough bandwidth to transmit the desired level of data within each system. There are no technologies that excel simultaneously.
BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy)
- Range: up to around 50m in the open and 10- 30 m indoors, easily extended via Mesh networks.
- Power: can be as low as LoRaWAN; can operate with 2- to 3-year coin cell power for asset tags with minimal transmit.
- Bandwidth: limited, suitable for infrequent pings and small amounts of location data but cannot send high rates of high-speed data.
- Location, proximity, indoors where fixed gateway infrastructure can be installed
BLE is the obvious leader for indoor RTLS use-cases as it integrates seamlessly with positioning system and can function efficiently with the 2-3 year lifespan that people often seek in a coin cell asset tag. Where most companies get snagged on BLE usage, it would be having gateway infrastructure installed in their property, the equipment, etc. The expense for getting a BLE tag onto the market are not just tied to the tag, but also to their infrastructure.
LoRaWAN
- Range: Up to several miles in the open space and upwards of 1 mile (1.6km) in Urban environments.
- Power: Excellent, very low and very capable for data transmitted over longer periods of time.
- Bandwidth: Very low - minimal transmit capacity of 51 Bytes/day over standard data plan – This means they can only transmit extremely small payloads less than once an hour.
- Used best where long-range tracking is necessary on low-cost assets where very minimal data per tag needs to be transmitted periodically, over a wide area of the United States. Best for when data is not of paramount need but for periodic readings on low cost hardware.
LoRaWAN is ideally suited for any number of applications where battery life and long range is essential and where updates are needed less than once per 10 minutes. They are a poor option for tracking rapidly changing physical assets, and should not be considered when you need to send substantial data across short distances frequently.
Cellular (LTE-M / NB-IoT / standard LTE)
- Range: Vast – as large as your cellular service will allow within your boundaries and abroad.
- Power: moderate to Poor compared to other methods. Cellular technologies will offer lower battery life relative to other choices on low data throughput. Data rates may not be very cost-effective even for smaller data packages.
The cellular connection gives you greater bandwidth at potentially the highest price per month per device if not done properly or given the right service plan through a telco carrier service. Cellular should be your choice when tracking assets that regularly transit large distances, such as through multiple states and potentially even internationally.
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