this post was submitted on 15 May 2024
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Unless you pay for expensive tags (like $20 per tag) or use really short range scanners (e.g. a hotel key), RFID tags don't work reliably enough.
Antitheft RFID tags for example won't catch every single thief who walks out the door with a product. But if a thief comes back again and again stealing something... eventually one of them will work.
But even unreliable tags are a bit expensive, which is why they are only used on high margin and frequently stolen products (like clothing).
All the self serve stores in my country just use barcodes. They are dirt cheap and work reliably at longer range than a cheap RFID tag. Those stores use AI to flag potential thieves but never for purchases (for example recently I wasn't allowed to pay for my groceries until a staff member checked my backpack, which the AI had flagged as suspicious).
The purpose of the RFID wouldn't be to catch thieves, but to train the AI. As the AI gets better at detecting things, you reduce how many of the products are tagged. I'm seeing something like $0.30/ea on Amazon, ~$0.10/ea on Ali Express. I'm guessing an org like Amazon could get them even cheaper. I don't know how well those work on cans, so maybe it's a no-go, IDK.
Barcodes could probably work fine too, provided they're big enough to be visible clearly to cameras.
Regardless, it seems like there are options aside from hiring a bunch of people to watch cameras. I'm interested to hear from someone more knowledgeable about why I'm wrong or whether they're actually already doing something like this. I don't live near any of the stores, so I can't just go and see for myself (and are they still a thing?).