We've been using some tracking hardware with firmware from a company called Wirepas that has implements mesh networking. They've been doing this at scale for quite some years. I their technology uses both wifi and bluetooth. They don't do hardware themselves and instead work with a large amount of OEMs. Cool company to check out and I absolutely love their website and approach to marketing. If you have a few minutes, check out their videos. They are hilarious.

The attraction of their solution is that the devices can be wireless and don't require a lot of infrastructure. You basically just mount them to the wall or the ceiling. Battery life is pretty good as well depending how you set these devices up. Years typically. Installation cost and effort is one of the big hurdles for companies to take this stuff into use.

So, interesting to see some standards for mesh networking emerging here.