The physical access control industry is rapidly adopting the Open Supervised Device Protocol (OSDP) standard for reader hardware. This site provides a space to share knowledge and experiences with installing OSDP devices.

Why OSDP?

Wiegand protocol is currently used by a large percentage of readers to communicate with the physical access control system. The vulnerabilities inherent with Wiegand protocol make it unsuitable for securing a physical space. OSDP provides encrypted communications that address these security concerns. Wiegand only specifies one-way communication from the reader, which severely limits the functionality of the readers. To get around this limitation, more wires were added to the harness. OSDP eliminates the need for these extra wires because it communicates in both directions.