Earlier quoted context omitted.
Installing to a known torque and painting a line on the fastener is a lot less expensive, which becomes important when your project has potentially tens of thousands of key fasteners, like a bridge. But for something like an MRI machine where there’s fewer fasteners and higher stakes - would make a lot of sense to use Smartbolt I think. Tangential: related to trucks, there is a somewhat similar product to easily moni…
Yeah, a quality torque wrench isn't cheap (particularly the kind you find in fixed installations like auto repair shops and factories) but there's got to be some crossover when you are buying enough bolts that you're better spending money on tools that are more idiot proof.
A torque wrench is better than a Smartbolt once it's put on the fastener, but the Smartbolt can be measured just by looking at it.
An HN company does a similar thing with RFID tags for grease zerks:
Again, it's not so much about measuring that the precisely right amount of grease was dispensed, but that every one of the 37 grease points was at least near the tip of the gun once every 30 days for the life of the equipment; the operator didn't forget about that one zerk that's hard to see and grease only 36 zerks for 5 years...