Indoor asset tracking: find equipment in seconds, not hours
We help hospitals, factories, warehouses and retailers locate the equipment they keep losing. We are technology-agnostic: sometimes the answer is a real time location system, sometimes an RFID gate at the door is enough. We tell you which one you need before we sell you anything.
Not sure what you need? That is normal. Many projects that start as we need RTLS end up with a simpler, cheaper solution.
Start from the problem, not from the technology
Asset tracking projects rarely start with a technology. They start with a cost that nobody has written down. These are the five we are asked about most often.
Staff spend hours looking for equipment
Nurses looking for an infusion pump, technicians looking for one specific tool, operators looking for a pallet jack. This time never appears in a budget line, but it is paid every single day.
You buy equipment you already own
When nobody can find the existing units, the easy fix is to order more. Utilisation stays low, the capital budget keeps growing, and storage fills up with spares.
Tools and instruments leave and never come back
Shared tools, test instruments and rented equipment move between teams, shifts and sites. With no record of where they went, the loss is discovered at the annual audit.
Inventory counting is manual
Counting assets by hand takes days, is out of date the moment it is finished, and still misses whatever happened to be in use that morning.
Rented equipment is not returned on time
You keep paying rental fees on units sitting in a corridor, or you get charged for items a contractor carried off site months ago.
Three questions to answer before you buy anything
The answers to these three questions decide the technology, the budget and whether the project is worth doing at all. We work through them with you on the first call, at no cost.
01
Do you need continuous position, or just passage?
If knowing that a pallet left the building at 14:32 is enough, RFID readers at the gates will do it for a fraction of the cost of a real time system. Continuous position only pays for itself when somebody has to walk up to an item and find it.
02
How precise does it really need to be?
Room level, 1 to 3 meters, or under a meter? Every step up multiplies the hardware and the installation effort. Most searches for equipment are solved at 1 to 3 meters, because that puts you close enough to see the item.
03
How many items, and how often do they move?
Fifty high-value instruments and fifty thousand pallets are two different projects. Battery-powered tags carry a running cost per asset; passive RFID labels cost cents but only report when they pass a reader.
The five technologies we compare for you
Two of these are our own products, one comes from a partner, two we source from third parties. We have no reason to push one over another, so here is what each one is actually good at, and where it falls down.
RFID, passive UHF
Accuracy: presence at a reader, not a position on a map
Infrastructure: readers and antennas only at the points that matter
Tag: passive label, no battery, lowest cost per asset
Relative cost: lowest
Best for: high volumes, inventory, check in and check out at gates
Not for: finding one item sitting somewhere in a large area
Bluetooth BLE, our Bluetooth Beacon Tracker
Accuracy: 1 to 3 meters in 90 percent of cases
Infrastructure: BLE receiving nodes at ceiling height, Wi-Fi 2.4 GHz or Ethernet, mains power
Tag: iBeacon, battery life measured in years
Relative cost: moderate
Best for: locating equipment and people across floors and buildings
Not for: sub-meter work, or anything that must react in under a second
UWB
Accuracy: typically under one meter
Infrastructure: a dense network of anchors, usually cabled
Tag: active, shorter battery life than BLE
Relative cost: high
Best for: process control, safety zones, robotics, tightly defined workflows
Not for: covering large areas on a limited budget
Video, our Sentinel Video Tracker
Accuracy: 20 cm
Infrastructure: your existing CCTV cameras, where coverage is good
Tag: none, nothing to attach, replace or recharge
Relative cost: low where the cameras are already installed
Best for: people flow, counting, occupancy and movement in open areas
Not for: telling two identical objects apart, or anywhere a camera cannot see
Long-range positioning, our partner Wheere
Accuracy: sub-meter, according to Wheere
Infrastructure: a few gateways around the perimeter of the site; according to Wheere, about four of them cover up to one square kilometer
Tag: active device
Relative cost: premium
Best for: large or multi-building sites, thick concrete, places where indoor anchors are impractical
Not for: a single floor, a shop or a small office
Figures quoted for Wheere come from Wheere's own published material. Figures for our Bluetooth Beacon Tracker and Sentinel Video Tracker are the ones we stand behind and validate during the pilot.
When indoor asset tracking is not the answer
We turn down projects. Here are the four situations where we will tell you not to buy a tracking system, or not to buy one yet.
You have a few dozen assets and they live in one room
A whiteboard and a sign-out sheet will beat anything you can buy, and cost nothing to run. Come back when the assets start moving between floors or buildings.
Nobody owns the process
Location data tells you where an item is. It does not make anyone put it back. Without a named person who acts on what the system shows, the dashboard turns into wallpaper within a month.
The real problem is that you do not know what you own
If the asset register is out of date, start there. Tagging items you cannot list is expensive guesswork, and you will not be able to tell whether the system is working.
You need centimetre accuracy with sub-second reaction
Safety-critical control, such as forklift anticollision, needs a reaction time under one second. Our BLE system updates in the order of seconds and is the wrong tool for that job. UWB is the honest answer there.
Our own system: the Bluetooth Beacon Tracker
When BLE is the right answer, this is what we deploy. Beacons go on the assets, receiving nodes go on the ceiling, and the server works out each position by trilateration of the signals the nodes report. There is no fingerprinting and no training phase, so a site goes live quickly. What we need from you is a floor plan in scale and a reference system.
What it does not solve
Accuracy is reliable inside the perimeter formed by the outermost nodes. Outside it, positions land on the edge. Large metal objects and mirrors degrade it through reflections, and the nodes have to be mounted at ceiling height, all at the same height. One useful paradox: it works better in buildings with walls than in wide open spaces, because the signal attenuates more and the system has more to work with.
Specifications
Accuracy: 1 to 3 m in 90 percent of cases
Tags: standard iBeacon, UUID, Major and Minor, transmit only, battery life in years, range up to 50 m
Nodes: BLE receivers, detect beacons up to 30 m, Wi-Fi 2.4 GHz or Ethernet, USB 5V power, -20 to +60 degrees C
Ceiling height: works well up to 7 m
Update rate: in the order of seconds
Output: WGS 84 coordinates or metric X and Y
Buildings: up to 30 levels, one floor plan per level
Integration: REST API, push callbacks, optional daily CSV with a position every 5 seconds
Dashboard: live map, polygon geofences, node health alerts, three access levels, views you can embed in your own web apps
Hosting: cloud by default, on-premise available
How we work
Step 01
Free 30-minute discovery call
We work through the three questions above with you. If the honest answer is that you do not need us, we say so on the call.
Step 02
Site assessment
We look at the floor plan, the environment, the Wi-Fi coverage and the power. You send a plan in scale of the areas to monitor, ideally the position of the sockets, and a few photos.
Step 03
Pilot
A real deployment on a limited area. Six nodes cover roughly 300 square meters, which is enough to produce meaningful results and to measure the accuracy in your environment before anyone commits to a rollout.
Step 04
Rollout and integration
Full deployment, integration with your systems through the REST API, and ongoing support. The raw data stays yours.
What it costs
We do not publish a price list, because the number depends on decisions taken during the assessment. What we can tell you up front is the floor: our minimum commitment is USD 5,000. Below that a project cannot be run properly, and you are better served by a simpler solution.
What drives the number
The area to cover
Node density drives the hardware count, and the hardware count drives the installation. A large open space needs more nodes than the same square meters split into rooms.
How many assets
Tags are a cost per item. Passive RFID labels cost cents. Battery-powered BLE beacons cost more and are eventually replaced.
The accuracy you ask for
Going from room level to 1 to 3 meters, or from 1 to 3 meters to sub-meter, changes the technology and multiplies the infrastructure.
Installation and integration
Cabling, power, mounting at height, and the work needed to connect the data to the systems you already run.
Frequently asked questions
How accurate is indoor asset tracking, really?
Our BLE system delivers 1 to 3 meters in 90 percent of cases. The final accuracy depends on the environment and on node density: more nodes, evenly distributed, give better results. We measure it in your building during the pilot instead of promising a number in advance.
Do I need to replace my Wi-Fi or my cameras?
Usually not. The BLE nodes need a reachable 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi network, or Ethernet, and a power socket. Very thick walls can block the Wi-Fi, which is one of the things we check during the site assessment. Video tracking uses the CCTV you already have, wherever the coverage is good enough.
How long does a pilot take, and what do you need from me?
A pilot needs at least six nodes, which cover roughly 300 square meters. From you we need a floor plan in scale showing the areas to monitor, ideally the position of the power sockets, and a few photos of the environment.
Can I get the raw data into my own software?
Yes. There is a REST API covering sites, nodes, beacons, levels, floor plans and metadata, plus callbacks that push positions to you. A daily CSV with a position every 5 seconds can be enabled on request. The data is yours.
Do you host it, or can it run on our servers?
Cloud is the default. An on-premise installation on your own server is supported when your policy requires it.
What is the minimum budget?
USD 5,000 is our minimum commitment. If your case does not justify that, we will say so on the discovery call and point you towards a simpler option.
Talk to an engineer, not a salesperson
Tell us what you are trying to locate and why. In thirty minutes we will tell you which technology fits, which one does not, and roughly what it costs. If the answer is that you do not need us, you will hear that too.