well, I mean, both ISO14443 and ISO15693 support anti-collision… and most readers do too… it’s typically the application software/firmware where things fall down. The tag select process for ISO14443A for example can easily query all tags in the field and get back all the IDs in the field at once, and not even have to select any of them, meaning all tags remain active while in the field. If the reader wants to interact with a specific tag, then it issues a select to the ID it wants to talk to and then the other tags all shut up… but it’s not necessary for inventory applications like this where you just care about what IDs are in the field.
UHF is considered the inventory tracking tech of choice only because it typically has a wide field and much longer range, so objects moving through the backscatter field have many many chance and angles to be easily picked up (warehouses, conveyor belts, etc.)… however, there are some caveats… the most important one I think is that UHF performance is basically crap when tags are affixed to items that contain water (pasta sauce) and metal (tuna cans) so unless you spring for the expensive “on metal” UHF tags, it’s not necessarily going to have superior performance over HF. Granted, HF also has this same issue, but I’m what I’m saying is that UHF isn’t necessarily ideal for this particular project.
In short, UHF or HF both support anti-collision and can read hundreds of tags in any given field at once.
Personally, I think this project sounds like a key candidate for computer vision… let the computer watch what you put away and take out and get glimpses of every time you open the pantry. Put that ML/AI shit to work reading labels and identifying food items. Cameras are super cheap and no extra labor for your wife or family when putting shit away. When it comes to projects like this the point is to be more convenient, not less… and to me it feels like the management aspect of having to tag products and deal with all that is more ongoing management hassle than it’s worth. I liked books and other things for the project in my book because those items rarely move and once tagged, they are tagged for life… unlike food which cycles in and out constantly.
I’d say if you want to do this type of project, pick something else that doesn’t require constant management of the items to keep them tagged, updated, etc.