Alternative RFID based Architectures for Mobile HCI with Physical Objects

High Frequency (HF) passive Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) is currently a widely adopted technology for mobile HCI with physical objects. Prototypes, pilot projects and industrial systems have been developed in a number of areas mostly following an approach in which RFID tags are either attached to mobile real world entities or carried by mobile users, whilst RFID readers are static and fully integrated into back-end information systems. With RFID readers increasingly embedded on mobile devices, another approach where readers are mobile and tags are static can be followed, depending on conditions and context of use. In this paper we propose an initial simple classification of alternative RFID based architectures following these two interaction approaches and we discuss a generalisation of relevant factors affecting the choice of an RFID based architecture fitting well with a specific domain. Finally, we assess the impact of these alternative RFID architectures on a set of recently proposed usability heuristics for mobile computing.