Card_Lab

Powered Card Technologies
Cardlab has an established supplychain, involving PCB production facilities in China, hot and coldlamination in Thailand and USA, as well as a network of component suppliers in Europe, China, Thailand and USA.

About Powered Giftcards
What is a powered gift card ?
A powered gift card is an ISO 7810 form factor card containing electronics, typically a micro controller which can be programmed to perform certain tasks.
Cardlab's powered giftcards follow the ISO 7810 standard which will allow the card to be used in a regular payment terminal.

Each card has the following common features:
  • 1-7 Brilliant LEDs
  • Powered by thin-film lithium batteries
  • Programmable Microcontroller
  • SnapSwitch Activation
  • Compatible with 3-Track Magstripes
  • Compatible with standard personalization equipment.
  • Durable Robust Construction
All cards support standard two or three track HiCo or LoCo magnetic stripes and can be personalized and affixed without modification to existing equipment.
Cards can also be manufactured with bar codes in a simpler format

Why bother with a powered card ?
As we all know there is fierce competition in the gift and novelty card industry. Each new season, issuers are fighting their competition with new designs. The challenge is to have a card on the rack which trumps all the others in terms of attracting attention.
The thin cards will fit into to neat racks placed at the cashier whereas the thicker case cardsare often allocated space elsewhere, and the patented flicker swich will ensure that some cards will be activated frequently as people acidentally brush by, causing the cards to light up for a brief period.

Cardlabs powered gift cards combine these advantages with the added versatility and implementability which comes by being able to use the cards in the common POS terminals all over the world.  
What can the powered giftcards do ?
The codes that determine how the LEDs behave can be changes to almost anything - and we can make the LEDs’ turn on and off in an almost infinite way. Pulsating, slowly, blinking, randomly, in a pattern,etc. Combining these patterns with several LED's gives plenty of room for creative people to generate new ideas for cards.
So far we have shown examples with 3 LEDs in combination with functionalities we could think of. But the technological platform allows you to alter number and positioning of LEDS, as well as customize the card’s core functionality.		  
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