Card Readers For Access Control Applications

by Tim O'Leary
Created: December 1, 2007

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For standalone access, we sold far more keypad types than those with integral readers, although the fact that some products had readers which could be used later if a security upgrade was required was a valuable sales feature that contributed to closing deals.

For network access we sold many magstripe systems, but this was largely due to add-ons to existing systems for educational institutions. Otherwise, prox was the next most popular, and curiously, the large long range readers were most used.

Standalone and hardwired systems using i-Button fobs were easy to sell and popular among our smaller commercial clients. I-button fobs are extremely robust, and the readers can be adapted to a wide variety of applications.

I did one biometric system last year and it was a standalone, and a near disaster. (The vendor was Korean, and the lapses in product support were exasperating.)

In the retail side, non restricted keyways are far and away the most popular, but for the corporate sector, restricted keyways and interchangeable cores are gaining a lot of market share as low cost alternatives to electronics, and as a defense against the negative press associated with key bumping.