Winner, Name That Ware November 2025

The Ware for November 2025 is a controller from the card-activated power switch in a hotel room. It was on the fritz, and when the repair person came and replaced it, Sam asked for the old module and brought it to me as a name that ware entry. Here’s the other circuit board that was mated to the controller: basically a big relay that can cut power to the room when the card is pulled out.

I’ll give Greg the prize, since he was the first to basically guess the ware. However, I never considered the possibility that the snap-action switch could be an anti-tamper mechanism. Maybe that’s what it is for? My assumption was that the switch is what’s used to turn on the RFID circuit to check for the presence of an RFID antenna. Given the simplicity of the components and the lack of an obvious way to synchronize the card’s code to a central server, I actually suspect the device can’t even read the card: it just checks for the presence of a tuned RFID load, so that you can’t keep power on in the room by jamming a random business card into the slot.