RFID Race Timing Tags

Passive UHF, not HF or NFC. In India that means the 865-868 MHz band, delicensed for RFID under WPC's 2021 short-range-device rules, which superseded the 865-867 MHz RFID rules of 2005; ETSI uses the same range, so the figure to watch on an imported datasheet is the US/FCC plan at roughly 902-928 MHz. Our timing tags use EPC Gen2 chips — the same standard as ISO/IEC 18000-63, marketed as RAIN RFID — so they should read on any compliant Gen2 reader rather than tying you to one supplier. UHF suits a finish line because it needs no line of sight, it can read several athletes crossing in the same second, and it asks nothing of the athlete. HF at 13.56 MHz and NFC read at centimetre distances and LF at 125/134 kHz is slower still, so neither works at a gantry. Chips we build with include Higgs 3 and 4 and Monza 4D, R6 and 4QT.

It depends on where your read zone sits and whether you get the tag back. The foam-backed IDTS-MBT4 bib tag sits on the chest, and the foam matters: the human body absorbs UHF energy, so the inlay has to stand off the fabric. Chest height suits overhead or side-mounted antennas. Shoe tags — the lace-through IDTS-LSTH3 or the adhesive IDTS-MSTH3 — sit low and read best over ground-level mat antennas, well clear of the torso. For triathlon and duathlon the IDTS-ATTH3 ankle band stays on through transitions and is built for adverse conditions, which matters because water and wet skin absorb UHF energy; if you would rather not collect tags afterwards, the IDTS-DTTU7 disposable triathlon tag weighs under 5 g. Some organisers run two formats at once so one read zone catches what the other misses. In every case the range you actually get depends on the tag, the antenna geometry and how tightly the field is packed.

They are quoted against a written specification rather than a list price. The drivers are the format and construction — a disposable foam-backed bib tag is a different product from a rugged ankle band or a ceramic-COB wristband in an ABS shell — then the chip, the order quantity, whether the tag is thrown away or collected and used again, printing and artwork, EPC encoding and serial numbering, and how soon you need it. Reusable formats cost more per unit but spread that cost across several events. The only firm price anchor published anywhere on this site is for basic RFID wristbands, from about Rs 15 per unit, and that is the entry-level event wristband rather than a ceramic-COB timing band. Send us your field size, the formats you want, your print requirements and the event date, and we will quote against that.

Yes. Printing, laser marking, artwork, serial numbering and EPC encoding are all done in-house at our New Delhi facility, so tags and bibs can arrive event-ready instead of being encoded on site the night before. Send the bib number range, the sponsor artwork and the encoding scheme your timing software expects, and tell us if numbering has to run in separate blocks per race category, because that changes how the job is built. If you also want a file matching each tag's EPC to its printed bib number, so athletes can be imported in bulk rather than scanned one at a time, ask for it when you order and tell us the format your software reads — we will confirm what we can supply. Custom formats typically take five to ten days, and every unit is tested in-house before dispatch.

The tags need no licence: a passive UHF tag has no transmitter of its own and only reflects the reader's signal. The reader is the regulated part. As of 2026 the 865-868 MHz band is delicensed for RFID in India under WPC within specified power limits, so a compliant reader should not need a fresh permit for each event — but confirm the current position and the applicable power limits with WPC before you fix an event specification. The UHF readers and antennas we supply are WPC-approved for India's licence-exempt UHF RFID band, and Identium is BIS certified. Those are the approvals we can document, so ask your venue or client what their compliance file needs and we will tell you exactly what we hold. For an event outside India the allocated band differs, and the tags and readers have to be tuned for it.