Car lots
A rental car lot, or a dealer selling new or used cars, has to know where each car sits and when one leaves.
How the original system could serve it
Each car would carry a tag, and readers would cover the lot. The host could then say where any car stood at any time. It could check cars in and out as they passed, and raise an alarm when a car dropped out of the count. That record would take the place of a logbook kept by hand.
The old site also said a dealer could stock fewer of its less popular cars. It gave no figure for that claim.
The compactTag was made for this kind of work, and its datasheet names cars on a rental lot. A tag could also wake on its own timer and check in. When a tag missed its check-in, the host could raise an alarm, as the system overview explains.
What a builder would need
A builder would need a tag for each car and readers to cover the lot. Host software would hold the inventory and the record of who took which car.
A lot is large and outdoors, so the range of the radio matters. The original datasheets' ranges belong to the original units and do not carry over to a rebuild. The TigeRFID design study chooses the rebuild's radio, and with it the range.
Building one today
Nobody has rebuilt the original hardware recently, so nobody knows whether the old files still make a working system. The TigeRFID project's study of the original found firmware for the sealTag only, and the rebuild's sealTag is a new design. A rebuild writes all of its firmware fresh.
The TigeRFID project is rebuilding the system from the ground up, for a complete beginner with free tools. To build your own, start at the TigeRFID repository, whose readme tells where the rebuild stands.
Nothing on this site says a rebuild may transmit on the original radios' frequencies as they are. Radio rules differ by country, and the TigeRFID project checks them before it chooses a rebuild's radios.
If you build one, or try, please report back in the repository's issues. What works and what fails both help the next builder.
Sources:
- the old site's Rental Car Lots page and its featured-application box, as it served them until October 2026;
- the compactTag page and the system overview on this site;
- the TigeRFID project plan on its main branch, for the design study's choice of radio.