Touchless & Hands-Free Door Hardware

The covid-19 pandemic has made the health of all visitors, staff, and employees a top concern for entry into communal spaces. As a result, door access points, such as door handles, biometric readers, and keypads are among the most commonly handled surfaces in any building.

Eliminating the need to contact these common touchpoints—especially with your hands—helps create a more hygienic and safer environment for everyone.

Importance of Incorporating Hands-Free Door Hardware

As more people head back into public spaces, infected surfaces are still a major concern. Not only have we seen our society as a whole adapt to new touchless functions but more and more people are expecting a hands-free experience—which includes public doorways.

Including low-touch to fully touchless door hardware solutions in your facilities shows your concern for the well-being of your customers, visitors, and employees. And over time we’ll see them become more prominent in everyday use.

These solutions help control the spread of germs and pathogens by eliminating the need for people to touch doorknobs, handles, and bars, thus keeping facilities cleaner and their occupants healthier. Touchless door solutions are also convenient and offer a pleasant user experience.

How Hands-Free Door Hardware Solutions Work

Hands-free access solutions can employ voice commands, facial recognition, mechanical solutions, gesture recognition, motion detection, and smartphone apps. For example, you can pair touchless door hardware with electronic locks and automatic door operators, integrating them with access control systems.

The spectrum of touchless access hardware ranges from low-touch to fully touchless options. You can learn more about this spectrum and other touchless door hardware trends from the Door Hardware Nerds, here.

Low-touch mechanical options include door hardware such as {push_pull_trim}. In use, you can use your forearm or elbow to pull the door open or push the lever with your hip—as an alternative to using your hand. Another example, you may install arm pulls on one side of your doors and a touch-free exit device on the other side

You can further improve on hygiene and safety by incorporating hardware with an antimicrobial coating such as {micro_shield}. MicroShield utilizes silver ion-based technology to curtail the spread of a wide range of microbes.

If you seek to keep your access points open during periods of high human traffic, you can install low-touch electromechanical solutions. Such solutions enable people to move freely between communal spaces without needing to touch door hardware at all. Fully automated touchless solutions employ electromechanical hardware, a door actuator, and a low-energy power operator.

Occupants don’t have to touch anything to go through these access points. With these options, there are various ways of triggering door operations. They include a remote-control fob, an RF transmitter, a proximity device (uses gestures), and an infrared motion sensor (senses the presence of a person).

What to Consider Before Purchasing Touchless Door Hardware

Some factors will determine the best touchless door hardware solutions that are best suited for you. Some of these factors include, the nature of your organization. For instance, a medical facility has strict hygienic requirements that necessitate different solutions than those needed by a retail store. Other important factors to consider are:

· How your access points are used

· The persons using the access points

· Available space, energy needs, and reliability

· Safety codes and standards

· Your budget

Overall, there is a wide range of options to help your facility or building occupants transition to touchless access. Through hands-free door control solutions, you can curb the spread of germs by reducing human contact with access points within your premises. Our goal is to help you create a space and convenient space. {contact_our_team} today to get the conversation started.