Proximity cards come in a wide range of styles, make it easy to incorporate a prox card system into any organization or building. Most prox cards come pre-encoded to match your system’s specifications – to order new cards you need your card format, facility code, and card sequence range.
How do prox cards work?
Proximity cards come embedded with an RFID (radio frequency) chip in the card – this chip sends out a signal to card readers with the card’s information. The reader gets that information and tries to match it to a card stored in your database – if it matches a card in your system the door opens; if it doesn’t match, the card is not authorized and the door remains locked.
Prox cards have three pieces of data stored on them that they send to the reader: the card format, the facility code (a number between 0 and 255) and the card sequence (an ID number for each card, usually between 0 and 65,435). To be authorized in your system, each card needs the correct format, the correct facility code (some systems may use more than one facility code), and a unique number in the sequence.
Types of Prox Cards
Proximity cards are available in a wide range of styles, so you can pick the card type that will work best for your organization:
- Standard PVC cards
- Composite cards
- Printable PVC or composite cards
- Clamshell cards
- Cards with magnetic stripes
- Key fobs
- Adhesive tags
What do I need for a prox card system?
To start a prox card or access control system at your business, you’ll need door stations installed at all entrances to read cards, software to program the readers and manage your cards, and the prox cards. ProxSource is happy to supply you with additional prox cards encoded to work with your access control system.
