Before entering into the discussion of the relationship between the Internet of Things and RFID, we must first clarify the differences between them. The Internet of Things is an extremely broad concept, not a specific technology, while RFID is a well-defined and mature technology. Even when we mention the Internet of Things technology, we should clearly see that the Internet of Things technology is not a specific technology, but a collection of various technologies, including RFID technology, sensor technology, embedded system technology, and so on.

01. Past

The early Internet of Things took RFID as the core

Today, we can easily feel the strong vitality of the Internet of Things, and its meaning is changing with the development of the times, becoming more rich, more specific, and more closely related to our daily life.

When we look back at the history of the Internet, the early understanding of the Internet must be very different from the current understanding of the Internet. At present, the Internet of Things is developing at a high speed, and the future is still full of variables and possibilities. Therefore, its understanding should be constantly calibrated with the development of the times.

The early Internet of Things has a very close relationship with RFID, and even can be said to be based on RFID technology. In 1999, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology established the "Automatic Identification Center (Auto ID). At that time, the recognition of the Internet of Things was mainly to break the link between things, and the core was to build a global logistics system based on RFID system. At the same time, RFID technology was also considered to be one of the ten important technologies that changed the twenty-first century.

When the whole society entered the Internet era, the rapid development of globalization transformed the whole world. Therefore, when the Internet of Things was proposed, people have consciously started from the perspective of globalization, which makes the Internet of Things stand at a very high starting point from the very beginning, or it can be said that the Internet of Things stands on the shoulder of the Internet.

At present, RFID technology has been widely used in automatic identification, goods logistics management and other scenarios, and is one of the most important ways to identify goods in the Internet of Things terminals. Due to the flexible data acquisition capability of RFID technology, the digital transformation of all walks of life is carried out more smoothly.

Nowadays, the Internet of Things is recognized as the third wave of the world's information industry after computers and the Internet. With the rapid development of AI technology, the concept of AIoT came into being. It can be seen that the Internet of Things has expanded new content on the original basis. However, RFID, as a flexible data acquisition technology, still provides the most solid support for the Internet of Things.

02. Today

The rapid development of the Internet of Things brings greater business value to RFID

After entering the 21st century, RFID technology has gradually become mature, and has shown great commercial value. In this process, the price of tags has also decreased with the maturity of technology, and the conditions for large-scale application of RFID have become more mature. Whether active electronic tags, passive electronic tags, or semi passive electronic tags have been developed.

With the rapid development of economy, China has become a [sensitive word] manufacturer of RFID label products, and a large number of R&D and manufacturing enterprises have emerged, which has accelerated the development of industry applications and the whole ecology, and established a complete industry chain ecology. In December 2005, the Ministry of Information Industry of China announced the establishment of the Electronic Label [Sensitive Words] Standard Working Group, which is responsible for drafting and formulating the Chinese RFID technology [Sensitive Words] standard.

At present, the application of RFID technology has entered all walks of life. The most typical scenarios include shoe and clothing retail, warehousing and logistics, aviation, books, electric transportation, etc. Different industries have put forward different requirements for RFID product performance and product form. Therefore, various product forms have emerged, such as flexible anti metal tags, sensor tags, micro tags and so on.

                                                                                                                                                                                              (Source: pixabay)

The RFID market can generally be divided into general market and customized market. The former is mainly used in shoes and clothing, retail, logistics, aviation, books and other fields with a large number of labels, while the latter is mainly used in some fields with more stringent requirements for label performance, such as medical devices, power monitoring, track monitoring, etc.

With the increasing number of Internet of Things projects, RFID has become more and more widely used. However, the Internet of Things is more of a customized market. Therefore, in the case of fierce competition in the general-purpose market, making customized solutions is also a good development direction in the ultra-high frequency RFID field.

03. Future

The development relationship between RFID and the Internet of Things remains close

The Internet of Things will have different understandings in different periods and regions. As early as 2009, Premier Wen Jiabao proposed "perception of China", and the Internet of Things has become one of the five emerging strategic industries [sensitive words]. It can be seen that the Internet of Things has been highly valued in China. It can also be seen that the Internet of Things we are referring to is more based on the understanding of the domestic environment.

With the development of the times, the Internet of Things technology covers more and more technologies, but RFID is always one of the most basic technologies. Because, in the overall construction of the Internet of Things, the perception layer is the most basic link and the most extensive part, which is the advantage of RFID technology.

With the continuous improvement of digital level in all walks of life, UHF RFID has become a major trend of industry development. At the same time, with the continuous improvement of China's international status, more and more domestic RFID enterprises expand their business overseas. At the same time, domestic manufacturers are also actively improving their production capacity to seize the opportunities of market growth more quickly.

As the production place of the global RFID industry [sensitive words], China is also one of the most important commercial markets, playing a pivotal role in the global RFID industry chain. Therefore, the development of the domestic RFID industry is not only closely related to the development of the Internet of Things in China, but also has a certain relationship with the development of the global Internet of Things.