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Posts Tagged ‘smart cards’
Friday, February 3rd, 2012
We deal with a very large range of different smart and access cards from brands like Mifare, Paxton, PAC, HID and Cotag and identifying what someone needs isn’t always easy. Most cards look pretty much the same, white plastic, the same size as a credit card. So how are you supposed to tell them apart?
Often, there are discrete markings on the surface of the card or minor differences in the design that we can use to identify your cards, but it’s not uncommon for people to have very specific encoding on their cards that is unique to them, so what do we do if that’s what you need?
The simplest thing is invariably for you to send us a couple of working cards so that we can analyse them and find out exactly what is going on inside them, then we’ll be able to confirm what you need and tell you how much they are.
If you’d like to find out more about getting smart or access cards, call ID Management Systems on 0800 408 1471 and we’ll be happy to help.
Tags: access cards, smart cards
Posted in 13.56Mhz, HID, Mifare card, Net2, Paxton Access, TDSi, access control, proximity cards, smart cards | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 26th, 2011
Whether it’s tracking the hours worked by contract staff or monitoring attendance for pupils and students, there are plenty of reasons why you might have good reason to see when people are in different places within your organisation.
Often people find it necessary to use a separate plastic card specifically for time and attendance systems but this can easily become unwieldy. We hear of lots of places where employees have to carry three or even more separate plastic cards to use on different systems.
With smart cards like Mifare 1K Classic you don’t need to use a separate card for each application. For simple systems the unique serial number of the card may be enough but if you need something specific you can easily encode whatever you need to the chip, even allocating different portions of the chip to different applications, meaning that you can get everything you need dealt with by one plastic card, making things cheaper for you and easier for your staff or students.
If you’d like to find out more about how you could use smart cards in your organisation, call ID Management Systems on 0800 408 1471 and we’ll be happy to help.
Tags: smart cards, time and attendance
Posted in 13.56Mhz, ID Cards, Mifare card, Plastic Card Printing, identification card, plastic cards, smart cards | Comments Off
Tuesday, October 25th, 2011
We’ve already talked about cashless vending and automated fare collection as uses for smart card technology, but there are lots of other things that these cards can be used for.
A popular use in many colleges and university is for print management, where a user needs to present their card before they can print or photocopy documents, enabling administrators to track excessive usage. It can also be used as a variant of cashless vending, where users have to purchase print credits and have them applied to their card before it will work.
Smart cards can also of course be used as access control tokens, where they will function similarly to any other proximity card. The advantages with using smart cards for this job are that they can be cheaper than other prox cards and they also offer the ability to be used for more than just the one application, so the same card can be used separately for both access control and print management.
If you’d like to find out more about smart card technologies or discuss a requirement you’ve got, call ID Management Systems on 0800 408 1471 and we’ll be happy to help.
Tags: access control, print management, smart cards
Posted in 13.56Mhz, Mifare card, Plastic Card Printing, proximity cards, smart cards | Comments Off
Monday, October 24th, 2011
One of the great things about smart cards is their versatility, the same card can be used for a myriad of different applications and due to the way that the memory is separated into discrete blocks the same card can be used for multiple different applications without problem.
Common applications for smart cards include cashless vending, where a card is used in place of cash, either by being topped up with money by the user in advance, or where they are sent a bill for the amount that they have used. Systems like this are very popular in schools and colleges and other places where it might not be desirable for users to rely on carrying cash.
A specific form of cashless vending is used in automatic fare collection, where a card is used as a credential for travelling on public transport. There are many different systems in the UK, but perhaps the well known is the Oyster card in central London which enables the card holder to travel on buses and tubes throughout London by presenting their card to readers on automated barrier systems in tube stations or mounted by the driver on buses.
This is just one of the most popular applications for smart cards, but we’ll talk about other uses soon. If you’d like to discuss how you can get the most out of smart technology, call us on 0800 408 1471,
Tags: smart cards, travel cards
Posted in 13.56Mhz, Mifare card, identification card, smart cards | Comments Off
Friday, May 20th, 2011
This means a card that is suitable for printing by a plastic card printer. They’re CR80 in size, which is an international standard that means 85.6mm*54mm. The most common thickness is 760 microns, or a little over ¾ of a millimetre. If you’re not into metric, that’s 3.375”*2.125” with a thickness of 0.030”. These cards are typically finished with a PVC laminate to each side, just like standard ID cards that don’t have any technology inside them. Some manufacturers like HID usually include branding details on their cards, other leave them plain white making it a little trickier to identify the card just from looking at it. Modern technology means that it is possible to include an awful lot inside one of these kinds and it’s not always easy to tell from a glance whether a card is just a piece of plastic or a sophisticated ID credential.
If you need help identifying the cards you need for your system, call ID Management Systems on 0800 408 1471.
Tags: ISO cards, proximity cards, smart cards
Posted in HID, ID Card Printers, ID Cards, Mifare card, Net2, Paxton Access, identification card, proximity cards, smart cards | Comments Off
Wednesday, January 5th, 2011
With the start of a new year, and a new decade, a lot of people start thinking about the future. It’s a good time to start thinking about what you need to do with the year and the decade ahead.
The last decade has seen a lot of change internationally with the developing political and economic situations. It has also seen the introduction of many new and exciting technologies. In this time the UK government has worked towards and even trialled its plan for a national ID card and then abandoned them completely.
In this industry we have seen many changes and developments in the last decade, and have no doubt that the decade ahead will be at least as interesting technologically. What new smart card technologies will be developed, will we hit the point that has been talked about for years when cash can be completely replaced in our daily lives by an e-purse, will biometric technologies mature enough to become generally acceptable?
Whichever way things go in the future, for the time being it seems safe to say that the prevalence of plastic ID cards will continue and we will find ourselves using them ever more, to establish our credentials and identity, gain access to privileged locations and make day-to-day transactions.
Contact ID Management Systems on 0870 741 3000 if you would like information on uses and applications of plastic ID cards for your organisation.
Tags: biometrics, e purse, national ID card, smart cards
Posted in identification card, proximity cards, smart cards | Comments Off
Tuesday, December 21st, 2010
Mifare are probably the world’s most popular smart card and are available in a wide range of types and configurations, of which ID Management Systems can supply nearly all. The cards are also available with chips of a range of different memory capacities. Mifare cards are manufactured by NXP Semiconductors, which is a spin-off from Philips who say that they have supplied over a billion of these cards online. Mifare technologies are based on levels of the ISO/IFC 14443 Type A 13.56Mhz contactless smart card standard.
The most common type of Mifare card that we supply is the Mifare 1k classic with blank white PVC. We also regularly supply this card with mag-stripes. We can also supply other versions including; Mifare Ultralight, Mifare Ultralight, Mifare Ultralight C, Mifare ProxX, Smart MX, Mifare DESFire, Mifare DESFire EV1 and Mifare Plus.
The Mifare card is a memory storage device and the memory is divided into segments and blocks which use simple security devices allowing them to be used as ID cards, student cards, electronic wallet cards, access control cards, print management cards and EPOS cards. Due to the way the memory is structured, the same card can also be used as a credential for many different applications.
ID Management Systems can also supply these cards pre-printed in a variety of different ways, from simple mono black back-prints, to signature strips and fully individualised bureau cards. If you need any more information about Mifare cards, please call us at ID Management Systems on 0870 741 3000 and we’ll be happy to help.
Tags: 13.56Mhz, DESFire, Mifare cards, Mifare Classic, Mifare Ultralight, smart cards
Posted in 13.56Mhz, Mifare card, plastic cards, proximity cards, smart cards | Comments Off
Thursday, December 16th, 2010
While you can use your plastic ID card as just a simple form of visual identification, increasingly people use them to do a lot more. The most basic plastic ID card is just a piece of PVC, but these can have barcodes printed on them by most standard printers without needing to cost you more.
Very popular a few years ago but increasingly over-shadowed by more modern technology, we do still supply an awful lot of magnetic stripe cards. Mag-stripe cards come in several different types that we’ll discuss more another time, but they all take the form of a strip of black or brown metallic tape laid into the surface of the PVC that can hold a limited amount of information. Odds are you’ll have at least a couple of cards in your wallet that use them.
Proximity cards are increasingly the default standard for access-control and time and attendance systems. These cards enable you to register your credentials by waving them a short distance in front of the sensor. Active (i.e. battery powered) cards can have a range of a metre or so, but these are uncommon. Most cards are passive (i.e. unpowered) and have a range of about 15cm. These type of card is effectively just sending out a specific signal (usually a number) whenever it’s near the reader.
Contact chip cards are also common for some applications, debit and credit cards being arguably the most common. These are cards that need to be physically inserted into a reader. You can recognise them because there will be visible metallic contacts on the surface of the card.
Of course, this is just scratching the surface of the types of different card technologies that are available. It’s a big subject, so don’t be afraid to ask ID Management Systems for advice.
Tags: barcodes, magnetic stripe cards, proximity cards, smart cards, technology cards
Posted in ID Cards, barcodes, identification card, magnetic stripe cards, secure id card options, smart cards | Comments Off
Thursday, April 29th, 2010
An effective ID card should be able to meet a variety of challenges, most notably in terms of durability and affordability. Therefore it is no surprise that PVC remains the material of choice for ID cards; ideally suited for a wide variety of applications.
For example, if you need to issue a large number of cards or require temporary cards, the most cost effective solution is surely PVC. Alternatively, if you need a card that can survive prolonged periods in a student’s or employee’s pocket then PVC cards are perfectly suited to the job.
You might assume that because of the affordability of the PVC cards, they somehow represent a “cheap” alternative to other ID cards, but this is misconceived as “PVC cards” is actually a broad term encompassing a variety of options, whether your requirement is for affordable or sophisticated cards.
Biodegradable PVC Cards
Biodegradable PVC cards are the perfect solution to applications that would traditionally lead to cards being wasted or thrown away. For example, if you issued a temporary card to every visitor to a school or building site, this could have a significant environmental impact. With Biodegradable cards, of course, this impacted is greatly reduced and any cards that end up in the biosphere will disappear after a time.
Security Options
PVC is also receptive to variety of security enhancements that make them ideal for use as a smart or access card. For example, you could incorporate secure holodesigns, Braille or micro text printing.
Tags: access cards, biodegradable PVC cards, ID Cards, PVC cards, smart cards
Posted in ID Cards | Comments Off
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