The use of technology in the workplace in order to reduce the number of touchpoints for occupants and visitors is becoming a major point of interest for building operators, including office, hospitality and flex-space providers. In order to facilitate the safe phased return of employees to the workplace, albeit on a reduced basis, most building operators will have to make some serious changes to the way people enter, exit and navigate their buildings.
It is one thing for general office employees who have the option and the ability to work from home, but what about the workers whose roles do not allow this? For example, within the retail, hospitality and tourism industries, building operators have the double burden of keeping teams and their own staff safe. Technology is likely to play an increasingly important role in this.
For example, for the duration of a hotel stay, it is virtually impossible to eliminate touchpoints completely, however, it is very possible – and important – to minimise them. Similar to flexible office space providers, hotel operators can use technology to allow visitors to safely access bedrooms, meeting spaces, leisure and entertainment facilities throughout the building. Simple things like this and having automatic front doors can cut down touchpoints straight away. Significantly, extending this building personalised access control also offers the opportunity for safely managing luggage drop-off and collections, in a less onerous way for staff.
The team at Standard Access have developed the patented ‘Sonic Handshake’ whereby occupants and visitors to any shared building fitted with IoT sensors can unlock and open designated room or zone doors by the use of encrypted sound through their smartphones in order to gain access. Sensors can also be placed on elevators or throughout the building, allowing building operators to secure the data analytics generated from all of these sensors (access and HVAC).
Also, in response to the pandemic, Standard Access has developed an Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to help building operators to comply with new public health crowd restrictions in the wake of Covid-19. SAvant is enterprise level software that can be incorporated into existing CCTV systems to detect the number of people in a particular area at any one time. If capacity is breached, the system will alert building owners or managers in real time to prompt corrective action. Crucially, this system can detect when people are wearing masks or face coverings. The SAvant system does not use facial recognition and will not identify individuals, making it fully-compliant with GDPR.
As your team prepares to return to the workplace over the coming months, contact Standard Access for an assessment on reducing touchpoints in commercial, residential or industrial buildings.
About Standard Access:
Established in 2014 by Damien Browne, Standard Access is a global leader in IoT solutions for smart building access and developer of the Sonic Handshake®, which is a revolutionary Data Over Sound technology to enable building and room access using an encrypted sound byte via app. www.standardaccess.co
