FEIG ELECTRONIC has added support for the Open Supervised Device Protocol, OSDP, to the ID LRU500i-BD UHF RFID reader. The company announced the extension on 14 September 2026, describing it as an expansion of an existing device variant rather than a new product: the reader keeps its Wiegand output and gains OSDP alongside it.
FEIG ELECTRONIC is a German manufacturer of RFID reader hardware, with product lines covering rail, logistics, healthcare, libraries and access control, plus the cVEND family of unattended payment terminals used in public transport, EV charging, vending and parking.
What the ID LRU500i-BD is
The ID LRU500i-BD is a compact long-range UHF reader with an integrated antenna and a built-in signal light, which FEIG calls the traffic light function. It is built for automatic vehicle identification and access control, and FEIG names plant entrances, logistics sites, parking garages and safety-relevant access areas as typical sites.
Per FEIG’s product data for the ID LRU500i family, the reader works at 865 to 868 MHz under European ETSI rules and 902 to 928 MHz under FCC rules, with a read range of up to 10 m. Output power is a maximum of 2 W ERP on the integrated antenna and 1 W on an optional external antenna, adjustable in 100 mW steps. The integrated antenna is circular-polarised, so it reads a tag whatever its rotation, which matters when a windscreen or number plate tag arrives at whatever angle the driver happened to park at. The housing is IP67 and rated from -35 C to +55 C.
On the air interface the reader is a RAIN RFID device, supporting EPC Class 1 Gen 2, EPC Class 1 Gen 2 V2, ISO 18000-6C and ISO 18000-63. RAIN RFID is the industry name for passive UHF RFID built on that Gen 2 air interface: the tags carry no battery and are powered by the energy in the reader’s field, which is what makes long-range vehicle tags cheap enough to hand out in volume. Definitions for these and other terms are in the RFID News glossary.
What OSDP adds over Wiegand
OSDP stands for Open Supervised Device Protocol. It is maintained by the Security Industry Association and was approved as an international standard by the IEC in May 2020, published as IEC 60839-11-5. SIA released OSDP v2.2, based on that IEC standard, in December 2020, and v2.2.2 in October 2024.
Wiegand, the interface OSDP is gradually replacing, is a one-way signalling scheme from the 1980s. A reader pushes a credential number down the wire to the controller and that is the whole conversation: no encryption, no acknowledgement, and no way for the host to tell whether the reader at the far end is still connected. A cut line or a tapped line looks exactly like a quiet day.
OSDP is bidirectional and supervised. Commands and replies confirm that a message reached the device it was addressed to, and the host can tell when a reader has been removed or has gone silent. The OSDP Secure Channel profile supports AES-128 encryption. FEIG’s release does not state which OSDP version the ID LRU500i-BD implements or whether Secure Channel is supported on it, so integrators specifying the reader for an encrypted estate should confirm that with FEIG directly.
The wiring was already in the reader
The detail worth noting is a physical one. The BD variant’s listed interfaces were already RS485, USB On-The-Go and Wiegand, and OSDP runs over RS-485. What FEIG has added is therefore a protocol layer on a bus the reader already carried, not a new connector or a different cable type. RS-485 also supports multi-drop wiring and far longer cable runs than Wiegand manages, which is the practical reason OSDP tends to simplify gatehouse and barrier installations rather than complicate them.
FEIG says supporting both Wiegand and OSDP “offers a high degree of flexibility for new installations and modernization projects”, which is the honest reading: a site can fit the reader now against an existing Wiegand controller and move it to OSDP when the head end is replaced, without changing the hardware at the gate.
What the announcement does not cover
The 14 September 2026 release gave no pricing, no availability date, no named customer and no executive quote, and did not say whether ID LRU500i-BD units already in the field can be updated to the OSDP variant. Anyone planning a retrofit on installed readers should treat that as an open question.
Read more at https://www.feig.de/en/news-en/osdp-interface-for-id-lru500i-bd/
