Proximity cards are quickly growing in popularity in a wide range of industries including education, healthcare, and business, helping organizations easily manage who has access to their buildings.

How do Prox Cards Work?

There are several components to an access control system – your prox cards, your card database, and the door stations that lock and unlock the doors. To unlock the door, that station reads the card and unlocks the door.

To transmit the card’s number to the reader, the card has an embedded copper circuit and RFID antenna. The card sends a signal with its card sequence number, your facility code, and its card format to be read by the door station.

How do Prox Cards Help with my Security?

To open the door using a prox card, your system is looking for three pieces of information – the card format, the facility code, and the card sequence number. If those three pieces of information do not match a card in your access control system, the door won’t open.

This has several advantages:

  • Prox card are faster and easier to use than a traditional key
  • To block someone’s access to the building, just disable their card in the system – you don’t need to collect it back from them
  • You can disable cards that have been lost or stolen
  • You can set different levels of access for different cardholders if you need to limit who can enter certain rooms (popular in healthcare and college dorms)
  • Your system can track when cards are used, so you have a record of when people entered your building

What Type of Prox Cards are Available?

We proudly carry our line of AlphaPass access control cards. Available in a range of styles, AlphaPass cards work with industry-leading card readers including HID models.

Your prox card options include:

How do I Order Prox Cards?

When you are ready to upgrade your system to use AlphaPass prox cards, you’ll need three pieces of information:

  • The card format (most often 26-bit H10301)
  • Your facility code (usually a number between 0 and 255)
  • The card sequence or range number (the next set of card numbers in your system)

If you don’t know that information, or you are setting up a system for the first time, contact our prox card experts for help.