Arguing that the current RFID retail approach is a haven for shoplifters and forces retailers to work with overly-expensive and fragile components, a retired Boeing engineer has come up with a way to leverage Wi-Fi technology and video cameras to make item-level tagging more practical and nearterm.
“RFID EPC tags will be laughed at by shoplifters because there are so many ways for them to foil and disable them, just as there are with EAS tags,” says Henry Lahore, the primary designer of the RespectRFID system.
The average loss to a U.S. retailer from theft is 1.7 percent of total sales. “For Wal-Mart, stopping 1 percent of theft could be worth more than $900 million,” Lahore said.
Read the entire RFID Journal story here.