Choosing a Tagon device
Battery capacity is the single biggest cost decision in an asset tracking deployment, and it is usually made backwards.
Start with the environment, not the feature list
The first question is not which tag has the most features. It is where the asset physically lives.
If it sits in an open yard, on a deck, or anywhere it will be rained on, jetted or submerged, you need IP66 or IP68 — which narrows the Tagon range to the Puck, the Card and the Tube immediately. If it lives inside a case, a vehicle cab or a warehouse, the unrated formats open up and they are thinner and cheaper.
Getting this wrong is the most common and most expensive mistake in an asset tracking deployment, because you find out six months later, one failed tag at a time.
Then decide how often you are willing to touch it again
Battery life is really a question about labour. Every battery change is a person finding the asset, getting to it, and doing something to it.
At one end, the Label runs for 40 days. That is not a limitation — it is a design decision. It is sized for a single consignment, so it is priced to be applied and forgotten.
At the other end, the Puck runs for three to five years. On an asset with a five-year service life you may fit it once and never touch it again.
The middle of the range — 12 months on the Pendant and the Sticker Pro, 24 to 30 months on the Tube and the Rugged — suits assets you already service on a cycle. Line the tag up with a maintenance interval you already have and the battery change costs nothing extra.
Ask whether it needs to be hidden
For most asset tracking, a visible tag is fine. For finance, leasing and recovery it is the opposite: a tag that can be found is a tag that can be removed.
That is what the Rugged and the Tube are for. The Rugged is a flat case designed to be fitted out of sight in a vehicle. The Tube is 17 mm across so it goes inside a frame, a seat post or a cavity — part of the asset rather than attached to it.
A shortcut
Outdoors and long-lived: the Puck. Vehicles and collateral: the Rugged. Cartons and consignments: the Label. Returnable containers and cases: the Sticker Pro. Tool cases and rental kit: the Card. Frames and cavities: the Tube. Worn by a person or a pet: the Pendant. Wallets, bags and keys: the Slim or the Disc.
That covers most deployments. For anything that does not fit neatly, describe the asset and the environment and we will tell you what we would fit.
Tell us what you need to track.
Tell us about your assets, your operation and what you need visibility on. We will tell you which Tagon device fits and what a deployment looks like.
What to have ready
- What you need to track, and roughly how many
- Where those assets operate
- Indoors, outdoors, or both
- Any system the data needs to reach
That is usually enough for us to recommend a device and a deployment shape.