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Smart Cards

Contact less smart cards are used to operate your time and attendance, access control and visitor monitoring systems.

All Tensor smart cards and key fobs use the same well-proven and reliable RF (Radio Frequency) reading technology. This gives a consistent read range which is unaffected by most external conditions.

Our most popular smart card is the T1305, which is approximately the size of a standard credit card and is thin and flexible enough to be carried in your wallet.

Tensor smart cards have no on-board battery that can fail. Theoretically, this means that each card has an infinite life, and can be read an infinite number of times.

How Smart Cards Work

Each smart card reader transmits a 125 KHz frequency field (the electromagnetic field), which is picked up by an aerial in the smart card. The reader has two read bands within this field; an inner and outer band, and these are controlled and rapidly oscillated by the readers on-board microprocessor.

The smart card microchip is a passive device which holds a unique factory encoded ID number that cannot be duplicated, making it very secure indeed. As a smart card enters the reader's electromagnetic field, it is automatically activated by the field's energy.

Smart Card Integrity

With up to 34 billion different combinations of ID number, there is no chance of duplication. In addition, each ID number has built-in security and integrity checks ensuring that it cannot be misread.

A cross-reference list correlating the external printed card number and the programmed ID number is also provided, for easy system administration.

In addition, Tensor can also provide smart card software, which gives you an easy way to professionally produce your own ID cards.