A smartcard reader is a peripheral device that can be connected to computer or an embedded system (or any similar device) in order to empower that device with the capability to communicate with smartcards.
A smartcard reader is a device that enables another device with comutational capabilities to communicate with smartcards (smartcard) or chip cards in general. Smartcard readers typically support the protocols defined in the ISO/IEC 7816 series of standards. Besides that, smartcard readers may also support other protocols for communication with chip cards and contactless tokens.
While the term "smartcard reader" contains the word "reader", a smartcard reader is not limited to reading data from a smartcard. Instead it can also write data to a card and can even exchange commands with a smartcard chip that are not directly related to reading or writing data but that trigger the processing of algorithms (e.g. cryptographic functions) on the chip.
