RTLS System Cost: What It Covers and How to Track With Nothing Installed

What does an RTLS system cost cover?

The cost covers the readers or anchors in each tracked area, the tags, the software and the installation. RTLS stands for real-time location system. It locates each tag against fixed points installed in the building. So every room, ward or aisle to be covered needs points of its own.

Those points need power and a network, or batteries of their own. In a 2018 hospital feasibility study, beacons were fixed to the ceiling of each tracked location. Each one was expected to last about a year on its battery.

A 2012 primer on RTLS in healthcare lists installation, maintenance and scalability among the things that set the cost. Some systems need location sensors of their own. Others reuse the building's power or Wi-Fi.

A crowdsourced tag needs none of this. There is nothing to fix to a ceiling and nothing to wire.

How much does an RTLS system cost in practice?

In practice, the RTLS cost for a hospital network can run into the millions of dollars. Federal spending records show the US Department of Veterans Affairs buying RTLS implementation for its regional health networks, called VISNs. The VISN 1 task order came to $30.2 million. The VISN 20 task order came to $16.9 million.

Both implementation orders ran from 2013 to 2016, and the spending continued after that. The VA later awarded separate contracts to keep the system running. One was an $8.4 million sustainment order for RTLS asset tracking, running from 2020 to 2025.

The same parts drive the cost at any size: points installed in each area, the tags, and the upkeep that follows. The medical equipment tracking system guide covers tracking hospital equipment with tags instead.

Why RTLS implementation cost grows with the area covered

RTLS implementation cost grows with the area covered, because each new area needs its own readers or anchors. A 2024 review in Sensors notes that, depending on the area, adding readers "can involve a significant upstream investment". The same holds for a large warehouse or a campus: each floor and building needs readers of its own. The review counts acquisition, installation and maintenance in the total cost.

Precision adds to the cost. Room and bay precision is what RTLS is built for. The 2012 healthcare primer describes a trade-off between cost and precision. The 2018 hospital study fixed a beacon to the ceiling of every tracked location.

A crowdsourced tag adds nothing to install when the area grows. It relies on any phone that passes.

How much do RTLS tags cost to buy and keep running?

RTLS tags cost from $2 to $95 each in published figures, and battery-powered tags add the cost of battery changes. Link Labs, a tracking vendor, gave those figures in 2017. It put simple beacon tags at $2 to $10, and reported Wi-Fi tags "as expensive as $95 a piece". For expensive capital assets, it put an RTLS tag at $90 or more.

For battery-powered RTLS tags, batteries are the part that keeps costing. In the 2018 hospital study, updates every 5 to 10 seconds would have been "fatal for battery life". The team cut each tag to 16 reports a day. Even then, the authors put tag battery changes at every 100 days, and beacon changes at once a year.

They called those changes difficult "because of the sheer number of assets". A crowdsourced tag's battery lasts up to six years, depending on its size.

AirTag vs RTLS: tracking with nothing installed

An AirTag, like any crowdsourced tag, is tracked with nothing installed in the building. It broadcasts a Bluetooth signal, and any phone that passes reports where it heard the tag. These networks are large (Apple counts over a billion iPhone, iPad and Mac devices, and Google over a billion Android devices).

None of the installed parts of an RTLS quote are needed. The table sets out what each one asks you to pay for.

What to expect from a crowdsourced tag

Expect a dated location record for every tagged asset once a dashboard keeps its reports. Nothing is installed in the building.

• Building-level position. The position comes from the phone that heard the tag. It shows which building or site an asset is at. The AirTag indoor tracking guide covers what it shows inside a building.
• Updates come from passing phones. Any phone that passes reports the tag. A busy ward, dock or yard updates often. A remote site updates less, and picks up again when someone comes near.
• Dated reports, not a live feed. Each position carries the time a phone last passed the tag.
• Where, not who. A tag shows where an asset went. It does not record who moved it.

Sources

• Real-time location system-based asset tracking in the healthcare field: lessons learned from a feasibility study, BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, 2018.
• Real-time locating systems (RTLS) in healthcare: a condensed primer, International Journal of Health Geographics, 2012.
• The Rise of Passive RFID RTLS Solutions in Industry 5.0, Sensors, 2024.
• US Department of Veterans Affairs RTLS contract records, USAspending.gov.
• Link Labs blog, "The Cost Effectiveness of Medical Device Tracking Technologies" (March 2017) and "RFID vs. WiFi: Comparing the Technology and Costs for Asset Location" (February 2017). These are vendor sources.