How it works
Two machines exist. Lobby-state pushes a face over Bluetooth from a reception tablet. Ship-state compiles the 250×122 image in Cleckheaton before the box is taped. We run ship-state for hire. Owned badges update from your account during the window you paid for.
You design or import names. We compile brick red, black, and e-paper white onto the panel. Couriers take charged hardware to you. Greeters match bezels to people. There is no tablet pairing in the foyer unless you brought one for your own reasons.
That is why a conference kit can skip the printer queue. The face existed before the building opened. Spellings you catch the night before can still ride a hire-window update if the kit has already shipped and the account is active.
Lead time is programming plus courier from West Yorkshire. A booking request is not a reservation until we confirm dates. That sentence is boring on purpose. Late lists do not create same-day miracles.
Some workplace badges pair by MAC address to a tablet, then take about ten seconds of Bluetooth 5.1 to flash a new face, often with an LED to confirm. Support articles describe Qi charging and hundreds of updates per charge. That architecture is built for a reception that runs every weekday.
We do not pretend our hire crate is that radio. If you need walk-up kiosk assignment as the primary loop, evaluate those products on their public specs. Our edge is the opposite physics: known lists finished in the box.
Owned devices on our platform still compile from the designer and People list. They are not a Joan Visitor kiosk. Do not buy us expecting a BLE lobby push we have not shipped.
The visual designer and the Dark Store label tools share a family of e-ink constraints: a fixed pixel grid, three inks, no anti-aliased grey from a full-colour logo. Upload a chapter mark as solid fills. Name hierarchy is encoded in the templates we start from — first-name giant, visitor bar, host, conference attendee.
QR destinations attach per person. Magic links let a visitor choose LinkedIn versus a booking URL before they arrive. The face updates while the kit is still here or during an active hire window. Paper tents cannot do that without a reprint.
When the hire window ends, face updates stop unless you bought the hardware. Return the kit in the same box with bezels protected. Missing units are a terms problem, not a shrug.
There is no automatic spare in the box. Count walk-ins in quantity. A greeter can add a name in the designer during the hire window and use a badge you already ordered. If you ordered exactly the export, the unlisted guest waits or wears nothing. That is a planning error, not a hardware fault.
Large open days should think like conferences: five to ten percent buffer. See the quantity guide if you are scaling past fifty.
E-paper sips current. Single-day chapter hire ships charged. Multi-day events need a USB habit overnight, not a generator on the stand. We do not usually pack charging cables for one-day hire. Email hire@inkbadgehire.com if your venue days run twelve hours of live refreshes.
A stuck face is often a flat battery before it is a failed compile. Charge before you assume the programming line failed. Return kits with enough charge to survive the courier; we top up fully between hires.
A ten-badge breakfast uses ship-state and a prepaid label. A two-hundred-badge HQ buy keeps devices and refreshes faces from the account. Same 250×122 compiler. Different custody after the event.
As of September 2026, workplace badge shops that require a visitor-management subscription are solving lobby-state. We publish qty × days × £6 plus £20 postage for ship-state. You can use both kinds of company in a career. You should not confuse them on a purchase order.
Pre-registration is how the list gets into the compiler before the box is taped. Read that answer, then the visitors hub for office versus event mornings.
If you only needed a definition of the object, start from what an e-paper visitor badge is. This page is the physics.
You pick quantity and dates on pricing or checkout. Kit sizes of one, ten, twenty-five, and fifty are shortcuts, not a ceiling. Checkout will quote up to five hundred. We confirm when the window is actually held. Programming does not start on a wishlist.
Names land in the designer by import, paste, or one-by-one. Role bars are template choices. QR magic links go out if you want guests to pick a destination. We render the three inks onto the film, charge the cells, label the bezels so a greeter can match hardware to a list without a scavenger hunt, and pack the prepaid return for hire.
Courier time from West Yorkshire is part of the product. A London morning still needs a working day of travel plus our compile queue. Scottish highlands need more. Do not treat us like a same-day print shop next to the venue. That shop still exists if you want it. It prints paper.
On the day, open the box the way we packed it. Faces should match the list. If they do not, photograph the mismatch and email before you invent a handwritten overlay. A hire-window update beats a marker. After the window, pack every unit. One badge in a jiffy bag is how the next customer waits on a cracked screen.
Owned hardware stays in your cupboard. You still compile from the account. Weekly chapters like this because Tuesday’s visitor is Wednesday’s speaker without a return label. The thirty-pound platform fee after year one is the compiler staying switched on, not a workplace analytics suite.
Hire-window behaviour is stricter. Updates are for the dates you paid. When the window ends, we need the physical kit back so another face set can load. Late returns block someone else’s programming slot. Post within a day or two of the last date. Proof of posting until we scan at Cleckheaton.
Mixed models appear in the wild: ten owned for core members, fifteen hired for a visitor-heavy morning. That is allowed. Do not assume hired units silently become owned because they sat in a drawer. Custody follows the invoice.
We do not currently run a Bluetooth lobby assigner as the default path. If your reception already has a tablet-based badge radio from another vendor, that is a parallel system. Do not pair our MAC addresses into a portal we do not operate. You would be debugging two compilers.
Ship-state means the image is already on the film when you open the box. Lobby-state means a tablet writes the image after the guest exists in the room. Joan’s public badge shop has described a Bluetooth lobby push in about ten seconds. That is lobby-state. We compile in Cleckheaton. That is ship-state.
Neither sentence is a moral. A weekday reception with unknown couriers wants lobby-state. A named visitor morning wants ship-state. Mixing the sentences is how a buyer pays for a subscription they will not use on Thursday and still stands at a printer.
During an active hire window we can often rewrite a face without a return post. That is still ship-state’s cousin: the compiler is ours, the radio is not a lobby kiosk you installed. Owned devices use the account the same way after year one, without the return clock.
Failure modes we own: misspelled names that left Yorkshire, cracked screens in a poorly packed crate, a date window that does not match the courier. Failure modes we do not own: your Wi-Fi, your tablet battery, a third-party BLE stack, a guest who refuses to wear anything on the chest. Write those on different lines of the incident log.
We charge before dispatch. You should still check a sample bezel when the box arrives, especially if the kit sat in a van over a weekend. USB-C is on the object. Do not invent a proprietary dock. If a unit is dead on arrival, photograph it and email hire@inkbadgehire.com before the morning starts.
Clips and lanyards: we focus the hire line on programmed bezels. If you need fifty identical cords in a brand colour, say so. Otherwise assume you have a way to hang a badge. A bezel in a pocket is not a visitor badge. Handshake distance requires chest height.
Return on hire uses the prepaid label in the box. Scan, pack foam, seal, post. Do not wait for a “we might buy these” conversation to finish while the next organiser’s compile slot is empty. Buy on checkout if you want custody. Hire if you want dates.
The programming calendar is a queue of windows, not an infinite SAM build. Late names after dispatch compete with the next crate. We will try. We will not promise a miracle because a slide said “real time.” There is no lobby radio in this loop unless you bought one from someone else.
Open the lid. Count bezels against the invoice quantity. Read three names out loud against the list. If those match, the rest of the morning is clipping, not debugging. If they do not, stop before you invent a Sharpie overlay and email hire@inkbadgehire.com with the booking reference. Ship-state only works if the crate you opened is the crate we packed.