The demand for live tracking of goods continues to grow. Businesses need accountability for items shipped, and want the automation gained from live tracking. Customers want to know where their goods are, whether it’s to coordinate meeting the package on arrival or definitively know that it arrived at its intended destination.

So far, however, it’s been a cost-prohibitive proposition to live-track most shipments. While the technology continues to push tracking devices forward, businesses need to evaluate the pros and cons of what’s available today, and what their use cases are when it comes to getting shipments safely from one place to another.

The prevalent option available today is tracking devices with lithium batteries. These are attached to a shipment and provide constant updates as the freight moves from one place to another. But lithium batteries, while they’re rechargeable and last a long time, are considered dangerous goods, and require safe disposal. And because these devices are also expensive, companies need to get them back so they can be used again. This requires engineering a reverse logistics plan for the trackers themselves, and deploying resources to manage and maintain a tracking-device inventory.

An additional nuance with these types of tracking devices is that they require pairing and activation. A warehouse or desk agent must manually associate the shipment reference to the tracker device ID, and ensure that the device is powered up and activated. This introduces opportunities for mistakes by inadvertently mistyping long IDs, forgetting to associate, or forgetting to activate. Ultimately, this limits the scale of deployment for trackers on goods.

There’s also the issue of dark zones where certain places get zero coverage, and the device is unable to communicate back to the business. Device suppliers will add in more capabilities, such as Wi-Fi, GPS, LTE, LoRa and NBIoT, to name a few, to improve data quality and isolate where shipments are. These capabilities require high-powered batteries, and the more complex the device, the more expensive it becomes.

Another consideration is the form factor. Such devices are bulky and thereby not discreet. To bad actors, it’s obvious to identify which shipments are being tracked and how. 

For all these reasons, applying such devices to most shipments is a non-starter because the return on investment is just not there.  

There’s great demand for devices that can address cost, be simpler to manage, be easily disposed of, have high data quality and eliminate the need for reverse logistics. And while we haven’t found the holy grail that can do all of these things at once, there have been improvements in certain areas, including making the device thinner, less bulky and less environmentally impactful.

This means, for the near term, that companies need to think carefully about their use case to determine what tracking technology is the best match. 

If your needs are around security and tracking the detailed telemetry of location, light, motion or shock in high-risk zones, you’ll need a high-powered device that can run all of those sensors. A low-powered model won’t be able to power all the sensors. Also, these devices are more expensive, may require reverse logistics, and they may contain lithium batteries that require safe disposal. But data quality will be good, and the cost-benefit analysis would make sense for high-value goods.

For those who don’t require a detailed resolution and answers to basic questions like “What building is the shipment in” and “Is the shipment moving in the right direction,” there are now trackers that take advantage of low-powered, non-dangerous goods batteries. Combine that with a form factor of a shipping label that can be printed as part of normal labeling processes as well as be disposed of in normal waste streams, and the possibilities of live tracking at scale become attainable.  

While the demand for live tracking in logistics is surging, current options present challenges in terms of cost, environmental impact, complexity and scalability. Tracking devices with lithium batteries, despite their effectiveness, come with safety and disposal concerns, as well as logistical hurdles for retrieval and maintenance. 

Moving forward, companies must carefully assess their tracking needs and weigh the trade-offs. For high-value goods requiring detailed monitoring, high-powered devices may be necessary despite their drawbacks. On the other hand, for more basic tracking needs, newer low-powered trackers offer a promising solution with their reduced environmental impact, simplified disposal, and easier integration into existing processes. As technology continues to evolve, finding the right balance between functionality, sustainability, and cost-effectiveness will be key to unlocking the full potential of live tracking.

Keiley Ostrow is vice president of business development at Reelables.