Bluetooth and LoRa – Ready for Timing Events?

There has been increased interest in Bluetooth and LoRa as A new type of timing technology. Atlas Timing and their US Distributor, Negative Split Productions are the early adopters of Bluetooth.  Brooksee with their Laurel Timing is the early adopter of LoRa. This blog is meant to talk about the current state of the market, where we see it going, and what we will be doing with this technology.

TLDR: Bluetooth and especially LoRa is expensive and not precise enough and/or scalable enough in terms of # of participants for full race times today.  However, there are innovations coming that will make it an interesting backup system for chip timing as well as a “good enough” for intermediate split times. For Bluetooth, RunSignup sees that existing watches and phones will help drop the hardware costs drastically in the coming years with improvements in checkin with personal devices like Apple Watches likely in the next year.  The same might not happen with LoRa since that involves more specialized and dedicated hardware.

History of Timing

Of course, races started with hand timing, with larger races using chutes, tear-off bibs and needle and thread or popsicle sticks to collect times.  

In 1996 chip timing came to the US and quickly became the standard for larger races as the only way to handle the large and growing number of participants.  Chip timing works with RFID antennas embedded in mats used at the start and finish and split points to read the tags that runners carry on their bibs.  The antennas are connected to controllers that collect the reads and do some processing to find the best read out of hundreds to pass onto the scoring software.  There are a number of providers in the market today for hardware systems, as well as a number of software scoring packages timers use to collect the “reads”. These systems handle the high density of reads in a highly accurate manner providing reliable results that races and participants have come to count on.

In 2012 James Harris began working on RaceJoy to do GPS based tracking of runners who ran with their phones.  In his early version he also combined the chip data to show both chip and GPS points, with clear communication that GPS was approximate and chip was exact.  The GPS tracking was very useful for estimating finish times and enabling spectators to find the runners they were looking for mid-race to cheer them on.  RaceJoy is now a key part of the RunSignup RaceDay RealTime set of products timers use to deliver NYC Marathon levels of timing capability to any race, and James is the leader of that team at RunSignup.

By the mid 2010’s there were early attempts at using Bluetooth devices as a replacement or augmentation to the RFID systems.  Multiple companies have tried a number of approaches, but the technology is really not precise enough at this time to deliver accurate finish times in large races.  A combination of limitations on accuracy and read rates are the limiting factors today.  We are seeing early attempts at using Bluetooth much like RaceJoy as a means of providing mid-race positioning and estimated finish times.

RFID – Accuracy, Cost and Use Cases

RFID timing is the gold standard for race timing.  Passive Bib Chips are well known and ubiquitous for most timed races today.  Bib chips are typically within 0.1 – 0.5 accuracy depending on the vendor and  quality of equipment.  Active chips can be on the order of 0.003 seconds.

A traditional RFID system involves the cost of a chip, and the antenna and reader used to identify a chip.  Active chips (used in cycling and triathlons due to more powerful signals)  that include a battery are in the $20-30 range, while the passive bib chips that most running races use are in the $0.25-$1.00 range.  A highly accurate reader with mats and embedded antenna will cost $5,000 – $25,000 depending on features, size and quality.  A number of vendors have introduced omni-directional transponders that do not require a mat, which can be cost effective for split points at around $3,000, but are not typically accurate enough (0.2 – 2 second range) for start/finish times.

Timers have high capital costs as can be seen above, but they spread that over several years of utilization of the equipment and the number of races they time per year.  

RFID is the only viable solution today for a race that wants to provide quality timing for the start and finish.  RFID can also be cost effective for split points as well because of some of the lower cost transponders being less expensive and simpler to manage and deploy and tear down.  Most importantly, there is not a need for the extra cost of an extra LoRa or Bluetooth tag.

LoRa – Accuracy, Cost and Use Cases

LoRa (or LoRaWAN stands for Long Range Wide Area Network) uses the concept of a mesh type network of multiple gateways (or readers) that can track battery powered sensors that get attached to a bib. 

The technology works using a triangulation method where a number of gateways (A and C in this diagram) can determine the location of a LoRa bib chip (B).

LoRa can support thousands of devices, but unfortunately has a limitation on accuracy of between 20-200 meters (for a 6 minute mile pace, that is 4-40 seconds). Brooksee might be using multiple triangulation readings with the deployment of a number of readers to average out a location, which may improve accuracy.

This low level of accuracy is very different than RFID and the typical expectations in the race and timing community. It is what causes a number of the timing anomalies that are seen in results data from Brooksee, and why they also use RFID systems in races.

Brooksee assembles components that have an estimated cost of $2.50 – $3.50 for each LoRa bib tag, so 2.5-10X the cost of RFID tags.  Here is a picture of a Brooksee tag on the back of a bib:

Note they do include a lithium battery, which in some locations has rules about how to properly dispose. The batteries also have a shelf life limitation because of the embedded nature of the device.

The Readers are far less expensive than an RFID. Component cost is likely less than $100, and a quick Google Search shows a number of off the shelf readers for $100 – $400. This means more readers can be deployed.

LoRa is kind of a Catch-22 of use cases. It is not really good enough for start/finish times or important segments like an award for fastest time up a large hill, so RFID is required. It can be somewhat useful for estimating finish times and showing approximate location on a course. However, adding an extra bib chip with this much cost as well as the overhead of purchasing, deploying and returning all the readers can be expensive. For participants who want an approximate location, carrying a phone and using RaceJoy is a far less expensive option and if not around tall buildings or obstacles can be more accurate (1-10 meters). For data collection, runners who care about the details typically are collecting a lot of specific data on their smart watches.

Brooksee has been quoting what seems to be very low prices, which might be early market subsidizing to prove out the technology. Races might want to read the fine print on price adjustments in future years of multi-year agreements.

Bluetooth – Accuracy, Cost and Use Cases

Bluetooth is between the RFID and LoRa accuracy – typically within 0.2 and 1.9 seconds. This is fairly close, especially to lower functionality RFID equipment. Bluetooth does have limitations of distance and density – typically Bluetooth readers can only read other Bluetooth devices within 10-30 meters. And we have reports from Negative Split Productions that current phones can handle only about 300 devices within range.

Bluetooth cost has two answers. Right now, the only reliable bluetooth devices we know of are from Atlas Timing. They offer only Active Bluetooth devices because of the requirement for generating a Bluetooth signal (unlike an RFID bib tag which is passive and is activated by the antenna). The tags are $26 each, but are reusable and rechargeable. Phones are used as the Readers with Bluetooth. Atlas offers rugged phones for $276 – $449 along with a variety of accessories like stands. Their app also works with any Android phone. Negative Split Productions offers rental programs.

The Atlas Bluetooth system also works with a variety of scoring software that timers are familiar with including RaceResult and RunSignup’s RaceDay Scoring. Negative Split Productions has rented their equipment and provided remote timing services to produce results by shipping the equipment to a smaller race director.

The use cases for Bluetooth timing include smaller races where there is less need for accuracy, and where volunteers can be stationed with their Android phones. This can be useful for Ultras and Trail events as an example. It can also be used in combination with RFID, but the challenge is the same as LoRa, currently requiring a mix of RFID chips and Bluetooth chips.

Note the 300 devices to a reader is a limitation of devices within range. So it is not recommended for a large start, but if using only Gun Time, then it might be possible to have a larger race as long as none of the timing points had high density.

RunSignup Plans

Our RaceDay team will be doing several related R&D projects this year. We are excited about the potential for Bluetooth to augment RFID timing, or be used for small races. Let’s paint the scenario we want to end up with:

  • Runner Checks In, and our RaceDay CheckIn app reads their Apple Watch Bluetooth ID and records that in our system along with the bib number so the RFID tag and the Apple Watch are both used to identify that runner.
  • Runners who do not have a bluetooth device like a smart watch or phone might be able to add a Bluetooth tag for a $5 cost. Potentially low cost Bluetooth tags might work with this system, so a race could put their logo on the tag.
  • Runner walks by a phone set up to drive a monitor to display the person’s name as a bib check. (This lowers the cost of having an RFID reader as a bib check). This might also be a photo station for before and after the race.
  • Volunteers load the Mobile Timing App on their personal phones (iPhone and Android) and stand at the mile markers. The Mobile Timing App sends that to the RunSignup Platform in the Cloud, which is synced as a split point in RaceDay Scoring. Results are posted automatically for each mile split point along with pace and estimated finish time. Spectators using RaceJoy for Runner Tracking get RealTime alerts, and those that signed up for TXT messaging get free alerts.
  • The Mobile Timing App’s new integrated photo feature also allows volunteers to capture photos, which are also automatically uploaded and then bib tagged with our current machine learning technology so that photos of the runners become available in the online results in minutes (depending on connection speed).
  • The Mobile Timing App is also deployed at the finish line as a backup timing device. This reads the bluetooth devices people carry, but also takes pictures that can be used as a backup timing mechanism since all pictures have the time of day in their meta data.
  • Final RFID times are posted for official results thru RaceDay Scoring and those are delivered in Real Time via RaceJoy alerts and TXT messages.
  • RunSignup’s Automated Email is set up to send a post race congratulations message to participants with links to their results and photos. And an invitation to sign up for next year’s race!

We have a lot of exploration to do on this project, but we do feel we can have at least some partial prototypes by January, 2026.

Other Resources to Learn More

Bluetooth Timing Blog

What is the Right Timing Technology for Your Race

LoRa and Bluetooth for IoT

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