Hardware
An e-paper visitor badge is a battery-backed display you wear instead of a sticker. Ours is a 250×122 three-ink panel: brick red, black, e-paper white. We compile the name, role bar, and QR, then you hire it for dates or buy it to keep. It is not a printed insert in a plastic wallet.
Paper visitor badges are a name printed on stock that dies at the end of the day. An e-paper badge is a small reflective screen in a bezel. The image stays without a backlight. Power is spent when the face changes, not while someone walks the corridor. That is why a charged hire kit can last a chapter morning without a cable ritual at the door.
Our face is 250×122 pixels. Brick red, black, and e-paper white — the same three inks as the physical film. There is no grey, no photograph, no gradient that survives dithering. The designer is a compiler: what you approve is what we programme before the kit leaves Premier House, Cleckheaton. If it does not read in the preview, it will not read on a lanyard.
Workplace vendors sometimes sell a larger four-colour panel with a guest photo, pushed over Bluetooth from a lobby tablet. That is a different machine. We optimise for handshake distance: a name a colleague can say while holding coffee. Photo ID belongs on a security pass if you need it. The visitor badge’s job is to be named, not to impersonate a passport.
Red is expensive on this grid. Spend it on MEMBER, VISITOR, SPEAKER, CONTRACTOR — a bar a greeter can see across a foyer. Do not spend it on a decorative stripe that fights the name. Black carries the letters. White is the field. Chapter marks and firm lines sit smaller because the introduction is the first name.
QR lives on the right when you want a follow-up. Black modules on e-paper white scan at arm’s length. We programme the code with the rest of the face. A sticker overlay that peels off mid-session is the failure mode we skip.
The same object wears every role. Attendee, host, guest, exhibitor, VIP — templates, not SKUs. A twenty-five badge hire can mix visitor bars and host faces in one box. You are not buying a second product line because someone arrived as a contractor.
Office systems often keep a tray of badges at reception. A visitor checks in, a tablet pushes a face, the guest returns the device on the way out, the screen clears. That loop needs a kiosk, paired radios, and a subscription that is the “brain” while the hardware only stores an image. Fair, if you run that lobby every weekday.
Hire is a different loop. We programme faces for named dates, ship charged hardware from West Yorkshire, you clip bezels at the door, then pack the box and use the prepaid label. The next organiser gets a different name set. Ownership is optional: £80 per device plus postage, year one of the account platform included, then £30 per month per account.
A small firm can hire ten badges for a visitor morning without capitalising a tray. A large firm can buy a core fleet and hire overflow for an open day. The compiler does not change. Quantity × days × £6 plus £20 postage is the hire formula as of September 2026.
It is not a door token. An e-ink face does not unlock Paxton, HID, or Salto unless you have built that yourself. Visual identity is not access control. If a marshal needs a live muster app, that is a fire system, not a lanyard.
It is not a workplace operating system. We do not book desks, parking, or signage playlists. The badge is the product. Software exists to get a correct face onto that product — People, events, magic links for QR, and, when we ship them, calendar-created visitor rows.
It is not a thermal printer alternative that still lives at reception. If your list is known before the courier, the box is finished. Walk-ins need spare quantity in the order, not a miracle in the foyer.
Paste names, pick visitor and host templates, book a ten or twenty-five kit. Postage is the same £20 out and back. You do not need a demo call to stop using stickers for a client morning.
BNI and breakfast clubs are featured because we wear this kit. That is not an official BNI International partnership. The same 250×122 grid serves a showroom, a clinic waiting list, or a chamber open day.
Import a directory, mix contractor and candidate layouts, brand the mark, order volume. Email hire@inkbadgehire.com above checkout’s 500 quantity field if you need a single dispatch date. Owned devices stay on the account after year one.
Compare workplace badge shops on their public pages — as of September 2026 Joan’s ePaper badge lists a five-piece minimum and a mandatory visitor-management subscription. We publish hire totals. Pick the job: permanent lobby with a tablet, or names on chests this Thursday.
Read how the badge actually gets a face — ship-state versus lobby-state — then how hire works as a trial. The visitors hub ties office receptions and event mornings to the same hardware.
Design a face in the designer before you book if you want to see the three inks at actual size. We programme that grid, not a screenshot.
Two hundred and fifty by one hundred and twenty-two is a small canvas. It is closer to a well-set business card than to a phone. That is the point. A phone in a pocket is not a badge. A sticker in a crumpled wallet is not a badge either. The bezel sits on the chest at roughly the height a handshake starts. If the surname is six-point type in the preview, it will be six-point type in the room. We refuse to “fix it in post” with a Sharpie on the morning.
Workplace four-colour badges advertised around five hundred and twenty-eight by seven hundred and sixty-eight pixels can hold a thumbnail photograph. That is a different bet: the guard looks at a face, then at a person. Our bet is the colleague two metres away who needs to say a first name without squinting. Both bets can be true in different buildings. Mixing them in one sentence is how buyers get a panel they cannot read.
Weight and thickness matter when you clip fifty units. A hire crate that rattles is how screens crack on the M62. Foam dividers are part of the product. Lanyards are usually yours unless we agree otherwise — the hire line is programmed e-ink, not a fashion strap catalogue. Say that at booking if your brand colour is non-negotiable on the cord.
Ambient light is the backlight. E-paper is reflective. Dark halls punish every badge, printed or electronic. We do not sell a glow. If your venue is a nightclub, this is the wrong medium. A breakfast room with windows is the native habitat. Expo halls with overhead fluorescents are fine. Direct sun on a glass lobby is readable in a way an iPad often is not.
Some “digital badge” offers mail a blank device and a cable and call it done. We compile here. The visual designer on inkbadgehire.com is the same family of constraints used on Dark Store hardware tools: a document surface, not a toy. Brick red is brick red. Uploaded orange becomes a fight. Simplify artwork to fills.
Premier House, Bradford Road, Cleckheaton is the registered office and the programming address. Companies House 17265335. That is not a fulfilment poem. It is where the faces are written. If you need a correction after dispatch, email hire@inkbadgehire.com with the booking reference. During an active hire window we can often push a face without you posting the badge back.
BNI marks appear in our looks because we wear them. Upload your own chapter artwork under your own licence. We do not sell memberships. Conferences use speaker and attendee templates on the identical panel. A visitor day uses guest and host. The object does not fork.
Bought devices keep the same compiler after year one for thirty pounds per month per account. Hire faces lock when the calendar window ends. That lock is how we free the kit for the next organiser. It is not a punishment. It is the difference between a library book and a sale.
A permanent office tray is a drawer of identical bezels that get a new face when a guest arrives. That loop belongs to workplace vendors with a tablet and a radio. Our crate is a set of already-named objects for a window of dates. The guest’s name is on the film before the van leaves Bradford Road. You are not waiting for a lobby assigner to finish a ten-second push while eight people watch.
Both loops can exist in one company. Facilities may run a weekday kiosk. Events may still hire a crate for the open day because the list is a cohort, not a trickle. Search engines mash those jobs into one phrase. This page is the object: 250×122, three inks, bezel, lanyard or clip. The visitors hub is the workflow. Pricing is the formula.
If you already own a photo-ID e-paper badge from another shop, do not assume our designer writes that panel. Different pixel maps. Different colour counts. Mixing them in one crate is how greeters hand the wrong physics to a guest. Keep fleets separate unless we have measured both films.
A visitor badge can still be a member badge tomorrow. The hardware does not care. Templates do. That is why we refuse a second SKU for contractors. Role is copy on the bar, not a different machine in a different shop listing.
The battery is a cell, not a slogan. We ship charged. Multi-day hire still needs a USB-C pass if the window is long and faces refresh often. A one-morning visitor day usually does not. See the battery notes in the event guides rather than treating this paragraph as a milliamp-hour datasheet.
Waterproofing, drop ratings, and military temperature ranges are not claims we print. These are office and breakfast objects. Rain on the walk from the car is normal. A wash-down factory is not. If your site is that factory, say so in the booking email before we programme.
Accessibility: the name must be large. That is the whole a11y story we can own on a 250×122 grid. We are not a screen reader. Colour-blind guests still get a role bar in red and black with high contrast against white. If legal needs a separate large-print paper pass, print one. Do not ask the film to be A4.
Photo capture at the door is a kiosk feature. We do not photograph guests. If your insurer wants a face on file, that is a camera system. Our badge shows a name. Those two jobs should not share a paragraph as if they were one product.