Do I need RFID readers to use zones?

To detect crossings automatically, yes — a fixed portal at each boundary you want to watch. Without readers you can still organise locations and track moves by scanning QR, barcode or NFC tags in the app.

How do I say where an asset is allowed to be?

With a left-zone alert rule. Scope it to the zone, to a category of assets or to a single asset. When a matching asset is read leaving, an alert is raised.

What is a checkout-exit alert?

An alert raised when an asset is read leaving and it has no active check-out. It catches tools, keys and equipment that walk out without being issued.

What happens when an unknown tag passes a portal?

The read is stored with its raw EPC and no asset. An unregistered rule can raise an alert so you can investigate or register it.

Is this GPS geofencing?

No. Zones are indoor boundaries detected by RFID readers at doors and gates. GPS geofencing is a separate feature: each site can have a map location and radius, and on Business an asset scanned outside its site raises an alert. See the GPS tracking feature page.

Zones

Know when an asset crosses the line.

A zone is a set of locations from your own Property → Building → Floor → Room tree. Put readers on its doors, add a rule, and Asetavo tells you when an asset enters, leaves, or walks out without being checked out.

Business and aboveCompare plans

Create your first asset zone Book a demo

Dallas Distribution Center · Warehouse, ground floorIllustration · sample data

Zone A · Dispatch & receivingDAL-A · Dock 1, Dock 2, Exit gate

Zone B · Bulk storageDAL-B · Aisles 1–6

Zone C · StagingDAL-C · Bays 1–4

Zone D · Secure cageDAL-D · Tools & scanners◉ Cage door portal

RFExit gate
portal

NF-00087 · Floor scaleA-104 · Pallet scaleNF-01877 · Pallet jackNF-02210 · Hilti drill

Pallet scale A-104 left Zone A

Left zone · Exit gate portal · direction out · just now

open

AllowedA-104 belongs in Zone A

ReadExit portal reads its EPC, direction out

Rule“Left zone” scoped to Zone A matches

AlertInbox + email to the Dallas ops lead

Illustration of a site. In Asetavo you don’t draw floor plans — a zone is a set of locations from your hierarchy, and readers are assigned to zones.

Product screen · sample data

What it solves

What changes when zones moves into Asetavo

The way it usually works today, and the way it works once it lives in one system.

Before: “It should be in the cage” — and you only find out it isn’t at the next annual audit.
With Asetavo: The moment a tagged asset is read leaving its zone, a left-zone alert lands in the inbox with the reader, time and tag.
Before: Tools and scanners leave the depot on the honour system; check-out sheets are filled in afterwards, if at all.
With Asetavo: An exit read with no active check-out raises a checkout-exit alert, so unrecorded removals show up the same day.
Before: Location in the register says “Dallas warehouse”, but nobody knows which part or whether it’s still there.
With Asetavo: Zones map to real rooms and docks in your location tree, and every read records which zone the reader belongs to.
Before: Foreign or untagged items pass through gates without anyone noticing.
With Asetavo: Tags that don’t resolve to a registered asset are flagged as unregistered reads.

Product in action

What your team actually sees

Coded from the real Asetavo screens, with sample data for a fictional company, Northfield Group.

Zone cards on the left, the location tree in the middle. Tick the rooms the zone covers and save the mapping in one go; readers and rules scoped to the zone sit alongside.

app.asetavo.com/zonesSample data

Tracking

Zones

6 zones · 20 locations mapped

+ New zone

Zone A · Dispatch & receivingActive

DAL-A

3 locations

Zone B · Bulk storageActive

DAL-B

6 locations

Zone C · StagingActive

DAL-C

4 locations

Zone D · Secure cageActive

DAL-D

1 location

IT Secure StoreActive

HQ-IT

2 locations

Denver YardActive

DEN-YD

4 locations

Mapping · Zone A · Dispatch & receiving

Selected 3 locations

Save mapping

⌕ Search locations…

Dallas Distribution Center
Warehouse
Ground floor
✓Dock 1
✓Dock 2
✓Exit gate
Dock 3
Aisle 1in DAL-B
Bay 1in DAL-C
Secure cagein DAL-D
Mezzanine
Shift office

Readers in this zone

Exit gate portal

Fixed portal · 6 s ago

Dock 2 portal

Fixed portal · 18 s ago

Rules scoped here

Left zone Email

Dispatch kit stays in Zone A

Checkout exit In-app

No exit without a check-out

Unregistered Webhook

Unknown tags at the gate

Zone editor

1
Zone cards
Name, code, active flag and how many locations are mapped.
2
Location mapping
Tick rooms under Property → Building → Floor. Saving replaces the whole set, so there are never stale leftovers.
3
Already zoned
Locations mapped to another zone are shown with that zone’s code, so overlaps are deliberate.
4
Readers and rules
The portals stamping this zone and the alert rules scoped to it.

Sample data

Capabilities

Everything in Zones

Every card below is in the product today, on the plans shown above.

Zones from your location tree

A zone is a named set of locations — rooms, docks, cages, yards — taken straight from Property → Building → Floor → Room.

Reader coverage

Assign fixed portals to zones. Every read is stamped with the reader’s zone, or the zone that owns the reader’s location.

Entry and exit events

Readers report direction in, out or present; in and out become entered-zone and left-zone events.

Allowed-zone rules

Scope a left-zone rule to a zone, property, location, category or single asset to say where things belong.

Exit without check-out

An exit read with no active check-out raises a checkout-exit alert — the gap between what was issued and what walked out.

Unregistered tags

Reads that don’t resolve to a registered asset are kept and can raise an unregistered alert.

Clean remapping

Saving a zone’s mapping replaces the full set of locations in one operation; zones in use by readers or rules can’t be deleted by accident.

Zone activity view

Filter the alerts inbox by zone, type, reader and date to see everything that happened at one boundary.

GPS sites and geofences on the phone

Separate from RFID zones: outdoor sites get a map pin and geofence radius. The app shows which site you are inside now and how far the others are, and managers can adjust a pin and radius from the phone (GPS capture from Growth).

Not in the product yet

Everything else on this page is live today. These are the pieces we are still building.

RoadmapDrawing zones on an uploaded floor plan
RoadmapTime-in-zone and dwell reporting

In the Asetavo app

Sites and geofences on the phone

RFID zones work indoors through your readers. Separately, each site can have a map pin and a geofence radius (maps from Growth, outside-site alerts on Business): the Sites list shows asset counts, distance and the site you are inside now, and the Map tab draws every site and geofence. Location is recorded only when someone acts in the app, never in the background.

Coming soon on theApp StoreComing soon onGoogle Play

Tour the app Mobile app features

Sites list with asset counts, geofence radius, distance and Northfield HQ marked Inside now (sample data) — Real screens from the Asetavo phone app (demo workspace, fictional company). iOS and Android apps coming soon to the App Store and Google Play.

Map of Chicago, Dallas and Denver sites with asset clusters (sample data) — Real screens from the Asetavo phone app (demo workspace, fictional company). iOS and Android apps coming soon to the App Store and Google Play.

How it works

From first step to everyday use

01
Build your location tree
Property → Building → Floor → Room, the same hierarchy your register already uses. No floor-plan drawing needed.
02
Create a zone
Give it a name and code (e.g. “Zone A · Dispatch & receiving”, DAL-A) and tick the locations it covers.
03
Assign readers
Pin each fixed portal to the zone it guards. Every read from that reader is stamped with the zone.
04
Define what’s allowed
Add rules scoped to the zone, a category or a single asset: left zone, entered zone, unregistered tag, exit without check-out.
05
Readers report movement
Portals report direction — in, out or present — in signed events as tagged assets pass.
06
Zone events become alerts
Matching events raise alerts with full provenance, delivered in-app, by email or by signed webhook.

Workflows, end to end

Lock down the secure cage

Create zone “Zone D · Secure cage” and map the cage location.
Mount a portal on the cage door and assign it to the zone.
Add a checkout-exit rule scoped to Zone D, delivered in-app and by email to the stores lead.
Tools issued at the counter pass silently; anything leaving without a check-out raises an alert.

Keep dispatch kit in dispatch

Map Dock 1, Dock 2 and the exit gate to Zone A.
Add a left-zone rule scoped to the “Pallet scales” category.
A-104 is read going out at the exit gate — alert “Pallet scale A-104 left Zone A”.
The shift lead acknowledges, finds it on a trailer, and resolves the alert with the asset back in place.

Spot foreign or untagged items

Add an unregistered rule scoped to the exit-gate zone, delivered by webhook to your ops system.
A contractor’s tagged pallet passes the gate; its EPC resolves to no asset.
The unregistered alert carries the raw EPC so you can register it or ignore it.

Compare

Ways to know where an asset is

Criteria	Zones with portals	Handheld sweeps	Scans in the app
How location is captured	Automatically as assets pass a doorway	A person sweeps an area with a handheld	A person scans a QR, barcode or NFC tag
Tells you when it leaves	Yes — left-zone alert at the door	Only at the next sweep	Only if someone records a move
Tag type	UHF RFID	UHF RFID	QR, barcode, NFC or RFID
Hardware	Fixed reader + antennas per door	Handheld reader	Any phone
Best for	Exits, docks, cages, stores	Stock-takes and searches	Moves, check-outs and audits
Plan	Business and above	Business and above	All plans (NFC from Growth)

Zones are indoor boundaries watched by readers. For outdoor sites, use GPS site geofences and trackers — see GPS asset tracking.

Deep dive

The detail behind it

Zone concepts, precisely

Zones are deliberately simple building blocks. These are the terms you’ll use when you set them up.

Zone: A named, coded set of locations (e.g. Zone D · Secure cage, DAL-D). A location can be mapped once per zone; zones can be switched inactive without deleting them.
Reader coverage: Each fixed reader has a zone and a location. If it has no zone, the zone that owns its location is used. That zone is written onto every event it sends.
Allowed zone: Not a separate field — it is a left-zone rule with a scope. Scope it to the zone (“nothing leaves the cage”), a category (“pallet scales stay in dispatch”) or one asset (“A-104”).
Entry and exit events: A read with direction in or out at a zoned reader, resolved to a registered asset. Matches entered-zone and left-zone rules; an exit with no active check-out also matches checkout-exit rules.
Direction: Reported by the reader or gateway. Portals typically infer it from two antennas or paired read points either side of the door.
Unregistered tag: A read whose EPC or code resolves to no asset in the register. Stored with the raw EPC and matched by unregistered rules.

What a zone event records

Every zone event comes from an authenticated, append-only reader event, so it can be trusted in an investigation.

Asset: Tag number and name, linked to the asset record.
Zone and reader: Which boundary, which reader, and the location that reader is pinned to.
EPC and direction: The raw tag read and whether it was going in or out.
Times: When the reader observed it and when Asetavo received it.
Handling: If it raised an alert: who acknowledged and resolved it, and when.

Works with

Connected to the rest of Asetavo

RFID Readers & PortalsZones are only as good as the portals on their doors — readers stamp every event with their zone.AlertsLeft-zone, entered-zone, checkout-exit and unregistered rules turn zone events into alerts.Asset RegisterZones are built from the same location tree your register uses, and every alert links back to the asset.Check-in/outA check-out at the counter is what makes an exit authorised; no check-out means a checkout-exit alert.TaggingZone detection needs UHF RFID tags commissioned from your tag stock.GPS TrackingZones cover doors and rooms; GPS site geofences and trackers cover yards, jobsites and vehicles outdoors.

Who uses it

Zones by industry

Logistics & warehousingDock and gate zones catch equipment leaving on the wrong trailer.HealthcareKeep pumps, monitors and wheelchairs on the wards they belong to.ConstructionDepot yard zones with checkout-exit rules for power tools and plant.ManufacturingTool cribs and calibration labs as zones, with exits tied to check-outs.HospitalityGuest-floor zones for TVs, minibars and linen carts that shouldn’t leave the floor.GovernmentControlled stores where every exit needs a recorded issue.

By industry

Warehouse Asset Tracking System

Go deeper

GlossaryWhat is a zone?GlossaryZone-exit alert GlossaryGeofencing (and how zones differ)GlossaryRFID portal ComparisonAsetavo vs itemit GuideComplete guide to RFID asset tracking

FAQ

Zones questions

Want to see it with your assets?

Walk us through your sites and we’ll show you zones set up the way you’d use it.

Book a demo

A named set of locations from your location hierarchy — for example the docks and exit gate of a warehouse, or a single secure cage. Readers assigned to the zone stamp it on every read.

Create your first asset zone

Pick one door that matters. We’ll help you map the zone, place the portal and switch on the rule that tells you when something crosses it.

Create your first asset zone Book a demo

No card required · Workspace ready in minutes · Simple USD pricing