Compare RTLS technologies: precision, battery, and cost
When two RTLS radios look similar on a brochure, compare them on location precision, power model, and cost shape. Those three axes decide which family fits one shift job without buying a brochure ladder.
How to read these charts
The bands below are twinzo planning guides from plant work, not lab guarantees. Walk a pilot aisle or yard with inventory in place before you scale. Absolute euros (dollars) still need a site bill of materials. Relative precision, power, and cost shape do not: those peer bands are usable for shortlisting before the quote. Match the job first under start with the decision, not the technology. The family survey sits in RTLS technologies out there. Peer deep dives cover each radio alone. This page is the comparison layer only.
Industry indoor positioning reviews and vendor-neutral RTLS guides repeat the same order-of-magnitude bands: time-of-flight UWB often about 10–30 cm (4–12 in) under clean line of sight, BLE RSSI often about 3–10 m (10–33 ft) in metal halls, BLE AoA tighter when locator arrays hold, and Wi-Fi location commonly about 5–15 m (16–50 ft) when access points double as locators. Treat those as peer envelopes for planning, then prove coverage on your floor.
Precision: peer bands by place question
Shorter bars on the chart mean tighter typical location error. High precision (about 10–30 cm / 4–12 in) fits exact floor position and dock-face proof when line of sight holds. Medium-precision location (about 1–3 m / 3–10 ft) fits aisle and bay search for most internal logistics and asset tracking jobs. Classic BLE RSSI in metal halls often sits wider, about 3–10 m (10–33 ft), which still supports coarse aisle find but is not the medium-precision band. Coarse zone presence and outdoor lot presence accept larger jumps. Each radio below answers a different place question. Match the band to the job, then pick the peer that can hold that band on your floor.
SLAM on a vehicle often plans around 10 cm (4 in). UWB commonly holds about 10–30 cm (4–12 in) under clean line of sight. BLE AoA sits near sub-meter (~3 ft) when locator arrays and calibration hold. Ceiling RFID on passive UHF often sits near 1 m (~3 ft) for live X, Y, Z. VHF phase ranging plans around 3 m (10 ft) on full-hall layouts. Classic BLE RSSI typically lands about 3–10 m (10–33 ft) in industrial metal. Wi-Fi as a locator often sits about 5–15 m (16–50 ft). Outdoor GPS on moving yard assets with ordinary modules commonly jumps about 20–50 m (65–165 ft). RFID gates answer presence at a chokepoint, not a free-space distance. Deep dives: SLAM, UWB, RFID, VHF, BLE, Wi-Fi, GPS. Accuracy band language for logistics vs wing presence sits under zone presence vs medium-precision logistics track.
Battery life: power models beside the sample rate
Life claims only mean something next to sample rate. Spaghetti and utilization analytics need a position sample at least every 5 seconds, ideally every 3 seconds. Sub-second updates exist and burn power. Motion wake and fifteen-minute blinks stretch battery life but leave too few samples for a usable path chart. Full detail sits under battery life for RTLS.
Passive UHF RFID (gates, many proximity reads, ceiling live X, Y, Z) has no cell. BLE often runs months to about eight years depending on tag size and advertising interval. Active RFID and sparse GPS packs sit in the months-to-years band when reports stay rare. Wi-Fi tags burn harder than BLE at the same rate. Small UWB tags at high blink rates often sit hours to months. SLAM packs and forklift tablets pull vehicle power, so the cell on a returnable tag is not the constraint. Each power model is a peer ops choice: passive forever until the label dies, battery at a chosen blink rate, or powered devices that shift the constraint to uptime and firmware.
Cost: relative shapes by install pattern
Absolute euros (dollars) depend on hall size, tag count, labour rates, and how many modalities you mix. The chart shows relative cost shape for common plant jobs, not a price list and not a ranked buy order. Put mount labour, tag swaps, licensing, and duty-cycle tricks on the BOM in what to include when calculating RTLS ROI.
Outdoor GPS trackers and modem or LoRaWAN backhaul avoid hall-roof arrays, so relative spend often sits with the yard pack and airtime. Inverted BLE keeps cheap fixed tags and puts the calculator on a truck tablet. Classic BLE RSSI adds fixed receivers plus moving tags. RFID gates concentrate spend in passive UHF portals at chokepoints. SLAM scales with how many vehicles carry a pack. BLE AoA, UWB, and VHF each carry denser anchors or regulated gateways, so continuous hall-wide track often shares a similar dense-install cost shape. Precise ceiling RFID RTLS (live X, Y, Z on a hall array) concentrates spend in dense antenna labour for that live-coordinate pattern. Final euros (dollars) still swing with specification, density, and licensing. Many plants mix peers on purpose: GPS in the yard, inverted or classic BLE in the hall, a gate at the dock, UWB only where exact floor position is required.
Those streams belong on one digital twin that supports live internal logistics optimization and forklift tracking, stores the same places in a spatially oriented dataset, and feeds correlation and causality analytics on which waits keep preceding stops. That three-part twin job is equal weight: shift operations, the place-and-time record, and hall-wide pattern work.
How teams shortlist peers for one job
1. Name the shift question and accuracy floor - Bay search, exact floor position, gate presence, full-hall fleet, or outdoor lot. Read the precision chart against that floor only. Medium-precision aisle track and coarse zone presence are different buys.
2. Name the power model and sample rate - Passive, battery, or powered. Reject multi-year claims that silently drop below a 3–5 second analytics floor when industrial fleet management or spaghetti work needs continuous path.
3. Score relative cost shape for that job only - Compare install pattern, tag lifecycle, and density for the peers that already cleared accuracy and power. Price a pilot aisle or yard, not a brochure hall.
4. Mix peers on one map - Put streams into twinzo for logistics and production monitoring. Product capabilities are on the features overview. Definitions start at what is RTLS.
Use the charts to drop unfit radios early, then prove the shortlist on your concrete. Get in touch if you want to walk precision, battery, and cost bands on your own facility model.