What are rogue RFID Tags? Tag Clutter? ACID RAIN?
RAIN RFID Tags are being created at the rate of 20 billion tags per year (in 2020). Standards around encoding tags weren't clear in the early days, and several methods were employed.
For example, most 'HP Print Cartridges' have a RAIN RFID tag. You may not need these tags, but they will show up in your tag data. Tag clutter is the overabundance of RFID tags not part of your ecosystem.
The RAIN Alliance released the RAIN CIN standard to overcome rogue numbering (Acid RAIN). Acid RAIN is due to the proliferation of rogue numbering systems using a duplicate of your tag ID.
Rogue RFID tags
Those new to RFID will often elect to encode tags like this:
- A 12-digit asset ID turned into ASCII characters and stored into the tag.
- A number starting with 1 or 1,000,000 and incremented for each tag used.
- An 'SKU' and 'serial' combo stored into the tag ID
Each of these options will eventually lead to issues in your RFID system or someone else's. Since you can not easily differentiate your tags from others' tags, your system will see many 'rogue' tags in your data feed. You will need to determine how to process rogue tags or make incorrect decisions as to your inventory counts.
