Market review · Reviewed 2026-09 · Next review 2026-12
Remote ID Receivers Compared: Evidence, Sources, Dates
How we compiled the candidate table, what the September 2026 market looks like from the buyer’s side, and where every number on it came from.
Our method, stated plainly
We collect list prices and specifications from vendor publications and record the date we checked each value. Anything we have not measured ourselves is labelled vendor-reported. Claims from operator discussions enter as community evidence only when we consider the source credible — and even then we say so. When a vendor will not support a claim with test conditions, the claim stays in the table but the label tells you what it is worth.
No referral arrangement existed with any manufacturer listed when this was compiled. When one exists, the disclosure appears on the comparison page before your details move anywhere.
What the September 2026 market looks like
Portable RID receivers. The specialist end is dominated by Dronetag’s RIDER ($1,099) and Scout (€2,499) — solid engineering, ASTM-focused, priced like the niche hardware it is. Both are vendor-reported figures; neither has been field-tested by us yet.
Module and fixed-site options undercut the portables: DroneScout’s Bridge module sits at €129 for experimenters and its fixed receiver at €950 for small sites. The Polaris Hobit NT module reads GB 42590 alongside ASTM, ASD-STAN and DJI formats at $2,588 (MOQ 1) — the multi-standard option that matters when Chinese-market or grey-import aircraft are part of your threat picture.
The RF-spectrum layer starts around $3,500 (Fanshuang handheld, list) and climbs toward $15,000 for multi-band fixed units. Its selling point is coverage of silent aircraft; its cost is false-alarm handling and weaker identity.
Open-source builds — WarDragon and AryaOS on roughly $300–500 of SDR hardware — sit outside the commercial table but inside an honest comparison. They work. They also require Linux, SDR and decoding skills, and nobody answers a support line when decoding drops in a crowded RF environment. Right for technical teams; wrong for operations that need accountability.
What we could not verify
- Real-world decode success rates under RF congestion — no vendor publishes them with test conditions
- Actual detection distances for the listed units in suburban terrain — our field programme is in progress
- Firmware update commitments beyond what is written in current vendor documentation
An honest gap in the table is worth more to a procurement file than a confident guess. That is why the gaps are listed.
How to read the table like a procurement officer
Three habits separate a useful comparison from marketing. First, read the evidence label before the number: a 5 km claim labelled vendor-reported has survived nothing, while a 2 km claim labelled measured comes with conditions you can repeat. Second, check the date — firmware moves decode capability between product generations, and a 2024 test of a 2026 firmware build is history, not evidence. Third, match the form factor to the mission before matching the price: a portable receiver for a vehicle patrol and a fixed node for a fence line are different tools that happen to share a category name.
When a candidate matters to your decision, ask the supplier three things in writing: the exact firmware version the specification describes, the aircraft and conditions used for the range claim, and whether the warranty covers firmware-related faults. The answers — or the silence — belong in your procurement file next to our table.