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Cabin door technology


bretts173

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Wondering if anyone knows when the switch to the new RFID technology occurred. Passengers on Quantum saying some cards coming already hole punched while others on the same cruise taking to guest services and being told can't be done. Ovation on the other there is no punching of a hole allowed at all. Any clues?

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Some RFID card stock is manufactured so the antenna avoid an area of the card making it safe to punch a card in that area.  However sometimes the ship is replenished with card stock from another vendor that doesn't avoid that area of the card.  In that case the crew put away the punch and tell everyone "nope". 

Sometimes the ship is replenished with card stock that is pre-punched.  It all depends how the supply chain is working out around that time.   

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Consider these three cards from Ovation:

image.thumb.jpeg.bfe6aa3e91c582ccfabcd276e62a4718.jpeg

All of the cards have the RFID logo in the top right corner.

The first card in the top left was pre-punched by the manufacturer at the factory.  The other two cards were not pre-punched.

If you shine a flashlight through the card you can sometimes see the antenna wires and sometimes even the very small RFID chip that are embedded into the card.

"Normal" RFID card stock has the antenna wires routed in pattern to make them as big as possible relative to the card.  If this card was punched in the same place as the hole in the pre-punched card it would break the antenna wires and the card would stop working. 

The flashlight trick shows the shadows of the antenna wires embedded within the card:

image.thumb.jpeg.10915cde325885ffadfbeeddf283e520.jpeg

Shining a high power flashlight through the pre-punched card and you'll see the pre-punched card routes the antenna wires in a smaller pattern away from the edges of the card:

image.thumb.jpeg.aadf6a9e1da53deddbb38e796f2c6e6d.jpeg

This makes the card safe to punch near the edge but proponents will say that the smaller effective antenna size makes the card less reliable and more finicky as you try to use it.

Some card stock vendors will route the antenna wires in other irregular patterns so that one corner or edge is safe to punch but other corners are not.  They charge more since the manufacturing process has to put more effort into ensuring the wires route properly. 

Often Royal has to acquire compatible card stock that is available when they place the order and they can't always dictate exactly what they may want so what arrives on the ship can vary over time.

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Interesting, I recall my first cruise on Oasis in 2017 I had a punched card that I got re-punched when the hole broke. The lanyard I had just had a clip. I just checked 8 other cards, zero punched. For Oasis, Anthem, Wonder, Ovation, and Voyager. I guess I've never noticed as I now use a lanyard with the plastic card holder. Nice to go back over all the cards though, thanks.

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1 hour ago, KevinJ said:

Interesting, I recall my first cruise on Oasis in 2017 I had a punched card that I got re-punched when the hole broke. The lanyard I had just had a clip. I just checked 8 other cards, zero punched. For Oasis, Anthem, Wonder, Ovation, and Voyager. I guess I've never noticed as I now use a lanyard with the plastic card holder. Nice to go back over all the cards though, thanks.

Until 2019 Oasis didn't have RFID technology.  When she was amplified in the fall of 2019 they changed the door locks.

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  • 3 months later...
36 minutes ago, Carlos A. said:

Princess have updated almost all their ships to Active RFID Tech. You unlock your door only getting closer to it with your medallion, they also added a little screen that welcomes you.

 

Door (and almost all) tech on Royal seems to be stucked in the XX century. 

Sailed on Oasis last month and wondered why they didn't have a system like this. We really like that on Princess and my wife missed being able to order a cup of tea and some food from wherever we were sitting on the ship. 

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On 11/25/2022 at 10:49 PM, PG Cruiser said:

That's probably for non-RFID cards.  But this puzzles me.  My SeaPass card from Ovation in 2019 was RFID.

 

We had RFID cards on Allure in January (the ones with the chip, right?) and they punched holes in them for us. I like the holes so I can clip it to my lanyard. I’ve lost too many cards in the plastic envelope when I’ve gone out on deck in high wind.

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11 hours ago, Bowen said:

We had RFID cards on Allure in January (the ones with the chip, right?) and they punched holes in them for us. I like the holes so I can clip it to my lanyard. I’ve lost too many cards in the plastic envelope when I’ve gone out on deck in high wind.

Does Allure have RFID cards now?   I wonder when they installed the RFID compatible door locks.  They were using non-RFID cards in 2021.

 

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11 hours ago, Bowen said:

We had RFID cards on Allure in January (the ones with the chip, right?) and they punched holes in them for us. I like the holes so I can clip it to my lanyard. I’ve lost too many cards in the plastic envelope when I’ve gone out on deck in high wind.

No you didn't; Allure is still using magnetic strip cards

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