As the world becomes increasingly digitised, with buildings and entire cities turning smart, interactions like access points and payments are naturally becoming contactless, smartphone-based, and personalised. Concepts like Amazon Go even make supermarket experiences frictionless, to the point of no cashier checkout, using Just Walk Out technology.
The Covid-19 pandemic has led ‘high risk’ environments to fast forward their digitisation roadmaps to prioritise contactless solutions to mitigate concerns and combat the spread of illnesses.
Elevator buttons are one of the most touched surfaces in any busy facility. Schindler Chief Executive Thomas Oetterli said in an interview earlier this year, “We realized, what people are scared of the most, they don’t want to push an elevator button anymore.”
Let’s explore the implications of this shift on new elevator design and some of the different touchless experiences that used to be considered state-of-the-art or ‘nice to have’ are now being implemented in response to new perceptions of public interaction.
Touchless signalisation
Fairly accessible, touchless signalisation with hand and foot gestures requires some initial learning. For example, with KONE’s system you can call the lift by swiping your hand up or down depending on where you want to go or by pressing a lower panel by foot. To specify a floor, finger gestures just in front of the button panel are picked up by a sensor. More futuristic systems are exploring the likes of holographic buttons to enhance the user experience.
Smart apps
Smartphone and smartwatch apps offer a contactless option that’s taking shape for buildings with regular occupants. Kone’s Elevator Call and Otis eCall™ will allow you to operate the elevator from your phone, negating the need to touch buttons as well as supporting smooth traffic flow by regulating lift availability. These technologies can also interface with building security, bringing the added benefit of restricted or directional access.
Making fiction reality
Singapore Studio Stuck Labs are taking things into a space more commonly associated with science fiction. Their Kinect Touchless elevator button prototypes gesture technology where passengers mime pressing a button that mechanically sinks in and out of the wall in line with their near-touch finger motion. The thinking behind this (somewhat indulgent) proposal of each elevator button having its own motion sensor and motor, is that incorporating existing familiar behaviour — in this case the finger gesture — facilitates user intuition, speeding up the adoption process.
Voice activation
It is also possible to implement voice-activated elevator systems like talk2lift, with no difference in installation between older elevators and new ones. These systems run in a plethora of languages, all the way down to local dialects and accents; for example, Talk2lift can operate in US, British, Australian, and Indian English, while a system used in a hospital in Beijing operates in Mandarin with eight local dialects.
Precision rates are as high as 97%, with no discretion between regular and new voices. Passengers can announce information like the floor level or business name, with the added benefit of greater accessibility for visually impaired people.
While we’re fast getting accustomed to calling out to our cars, lights, TV, sound systems, and the likes to control them, one of the trickiest parts of voice-activated elevators is awareness and adoption; but as with all mass technological advancements, it’s simply a matter of time before old practices are forgotten altogether.
As with the changing environments, systems, and digitalisation driving the future of elevators, the materials being used for interior outfitting have come a long way, and so too have the adhesive solutions that bond them. Click here to learn about tesa® bonding solutions for the elevator industry.
If you would like to take your elevator design to the next level with a customised adhesive solution, get in touch with us using the link below.
