Heard of RuBee? No, then let me tell you that it is a standard called IEEE 1902.1 which is expected to give retailers and manufacturers an attractive alternative to RFID for many applications, mainly item level efforts. IEEE has been working on this protocol.

It is expected that the products based on the protocol would be available within twelve to eighteen months. RuBee is getting support from companies such as Metro, Tesco, Motorola, IBM, Sony, Panasonic and NCR. It is not being regarded as a wholesale replacement for RFID but as an alternative technology which might be better suited for specific applications.

As per IEEE statement:

RuBee is a bidirectional, on-demand, peer-to-peer, radiating, transceiver protocol operating at wavelengths below 450 Khz. This protocol works in harsh environments with networks of many thousands of tags and has an area range of 10 to 50 feet.

IEEE P1902.1 will offer a real-time, tag-searchable protocol using IPv4 addresses and subnet addresses linked to asset taxonomies that run at speeds of 300 to 9,600 Baud. RuBee Visibility Networks are managed by a low-cost Ethernet enabled router. Individual tags and tag data may be viewed as a stand-alone, web server from anywhere in the world. Each RuBee tag, if properly enabled, can be discovered and monitored over the World Wide Web using popular search engines (e.g., Google) or via the Visible Asset's .tag Tag Name Server.

RuBee can work well through liquids and metals as compared to RFID which struggles to get accurate figures in these situations. It also consumes less power. When seen from the price perspective there is no major difference between RuBee and traditional RFID approaches.

Are the days of RFID numbered?