Hands-free access
In the old site's day, most access badges had to touch a reader, or come within about 30 centimeters (12 inches) of it. That is awkward with full hands or in bad weather, and harder still for someone who cannot easily reach the reader.
How the original system could serve it
The ActiveWave badge was read from a distance, so a person could walk through a door without handling it. The old site said a reader could read a badge up to 5 meters (about 16 feet) away.
Many of the readers could reach the access-control computer by radio. Someone could then move a reader without running new wires. The system could report any entry that was not allowed, and start a camera to record an entry as it happened.
The software could also link an asset's tag to its owner's badge. A valuable item could then move only with its owner, and the system would raise an alarm when it moved without them.
The cardTag suited an employee badge. The Standard Reader's contact inputs sensed a door or an exit button, and its relay outputs drove door strikes and magnetic locks.
What a builder would need
A builder would need a badge for each person and a reader at each door, wired to its lock. Host software would hold who may go where.
The rebuild's first milestone includes a cardTag, and a tag paired with a person that raises an alarm when it leaves without them. That is the owner-and-asset pairing above, at the scale of one room. It does not include a door lock.
Building one today
Nobody has rebuilt the original hardware recently, so nobody knows whether the old files still make a working system. The TigeRFID project's study of the original found firmware for the sealTag only, and the rebuild's sealTag is a new design. A rebuild writes all of its firmware fresh.
The TigeRFID project is rebuilding the system from the ground up, for a complete beginner with free tools. To build your own, start at the TigeRFID repository, whose readme tells where the rebuild stands.
Nothing on this site says a rebuild may transmit on the original radios' frequencies as they are. Radio rules differ by country, and the TigeRFID project checks them before it chooses a rebuild's radios.
If you build one, or try, please report back in the repository's issues. What works and what fails both help the next builder.
Sources:
- the old site's ID Badges and Access Control page and its featured-application box, as it served them until October 2026;
- the cardTag and Standard Reader pages on this site;
- the TigeRFID project plan on its main branch, for the rebuild's first milestone.