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zharvey
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Cheap COTS identification system that integrates with Raspberry Pi

I am designing a hobby project where I need a small device (powered by RPi that is running an app over linux) to be able to detect when it is within, say, 2 feet of another object. My initial thinking was that this is a perfect use case for RFID, but perhaps there are better strategies/techs out there. Also, this being a personal/hobby project, I'm looking for open source software/hardware and COTS components every step of the way.

If I were to go the RFID route, then I would need an RFID interrogator integrated with the RPi device. This could either be a standalone RFID reader that just passes on tag detection events on to the RPi, or perhaps my own homegrown hardware that does the same thing. When the reader detects a tag, it needs to communicate with an app running on the RPi, probably via serial comm.

My questions:

  1. Is RFID the right solution for this use case? If not, what is? Can you give details on how you might implement it?
  2. If RFID is the right solution, then what types of RFID tags and readers would be cheap/COTS, and compatible with RPi? Alternatively, what hardware would I need that could serve as a primitive reader, and communicate with RPi?
zharvey
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