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24 terms
The vocabulary a wristband quotation uses
Written so that each definition is useful read on its own, because that is how a glossary is actually used. No chip family or lock brand appears here — those names belong in your own system documentation.
- Agglomerated cork
- Granulated cork bound and pressed onto a backing. Used for cork faceplates. The binder is a polymer, which is why an agglomerated cork band is not compostable and is never described here as biodegradable.
- Anti-collision
- The protocol that lets a reader single out one credential when several are in its field at once. Relevant at a busy gate where two guests present bands together; without it the reader sees interference rather than a credential.
- Antenna
- The loop of fine conductor inside a band that couples with the reader's field and powers the chip. Larger loop area means longer range, which is why a wristband reads at shorter distance than a card.
- Debossing
- Artwork cut into the mould so it becomes a shape in the material rather than a layer on it. Carries no colour of its own, and cannot fade, scratch off or peel.
- Detuning
- A shift in the antenna's resonant frequency caused by something nearby — water, a wrist, metal. It reduces range rather than breaking anything, and it is why wet bands read less well than dry ones.
- Encoding
- Writing a credential to a band before dispatch, to the scheme confirmed for the property, so bands arrive ready to issue. Every band is read back after writing and failures are removed before printing.
- Flexographic printing
- A relief printing process used on synthetic paper bands. Gives even solid coverage that does not mottle, which matters when a band carries a property colour rather than a logo on white.
- HF
- High frequency, 13.56 MHz. The frequency nearly all resort wristbands use. Short deliberate range, globally allocated, tolerant of water compared with longer-range alternatives.
- Inlay
- The chip and antenna assembly, usually laminated, that is placed inside a band during manufacture. What is over-moulded, pocketed or laminated into the finished product.
- LF
- Low frequency, 125 kHz. An older credential standard still running on many properties. More tolerant near metal and water, with minimal security and generally no writable protected memory.
- Load modulation
- How a passive credential replies: by varying how much energy it draws from the reader's field, which the reader detects as a disturbance in its own signal. The band never transmits on its own.
- NFC
- A set of rules within 13.56 MHz that allows an ordinary smartphone to read a credential. Used for phone-readable records — a link or a text — and not an access credential in itself.
- One-time lock
- A closure that cannot be reopened once fastened. The mechanism that makes a band genuinely non-transferable; more important to access control than anything inside the band.
- Over-moulding
- Placing the inlay in the tool and moulding silicone around it in one shot, so there is no glued seam. More expensive and longer to produce than a pocketed construction, and materially longer-lived.
- Passive credential
- A transponder with no battery, powered entirely by the reader's field for the moment of the transaction. All wristband transponders described on this site are passive.
- Read range
- The distance at which a reader reliably completes a transaction. Governed mostly by antenna area and orientation, not by chip selection.
- Sector
- An independently protected division of a chip's writable memory, each capable of requiring its own key. Lets separate systems share one credential without reading each other's data.
- Sequential block
- A continuous range of credential numbers encoded and delivered together, recorded per carton. What makes issuing, reconciling and revoking bands administratively possible.
- Shore A
- A hardness scale for flexible materials. Silicone bands here are supplied at 50 Shore A — firm enough to hold a clean debossed edge, soft enough that a guest stops noticing the band.
- Spunbonded
- A process that bonds polymer filaments into a sheet by heat and pressure rather than weaving them. Produces synthetic paper: high tear strength along the sheet, almost none once a cut is started.
- Tamper evidence
- Construction that makes removal visible and irreversible — an adhesive tab that lifts the surface coating, or a snap that deforms permanently. The countermeasure to a band being passed to another wrist.
- Transponder
- The chip and antenna together. Inert until energised by a reader, with no battery and no meaningful wear mechanism; it outlasts the band around it.
- UHF
- Ultra-high frequency, roughly 860–960 MHz. Reads at metres and is strongly absorbed by water, which is why it suits linen and assets at a resort rather than credentials worn on a wrist.
- Woven artwork
- A design carried through fabric as coloured thread on a jacquard loom, visible in negative on the reverse. Cannot wear off, and cannot be altered once the loom is set.
Third-party marks. All third-party marks are the property of their respective owners. Any reference indicates compatibility only and does not imply affiliation or endorsement.
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