HID Global, the access control and identity product company, has announced its new HID Location Services. It’s aimed at enterprises, universities, factories or any organisation seeking to optimise their workforce and streamline facility management, by analysis of room usage for better building management.
Harm Radstaak, Vice President and Managing Director of Physical Access Control Solutions with HID Global, said: “HID Location Services extends HID’s leadership in physical access control with a cutting-edge Internet of Things offering for workforce optimisation solutions that can be easily integrated into existing systems. These new capabilities leverage the power of trusted identities to provide a new level of visibility for customers to better understand how buildings are used, help quickly find people in emergency situations, and deliver an extraordinary user experience.”
HID Location Services is enabled by Bluvision, a company recently acquired by HID Global. Its real-time location services are for monitoring and providing deeper analytics around the movement of personnel in a building to optimise usage of facilities, common areas and rooms. The proximity-based services verify when personnel are nearby a given area for use cases such as monitoring employee check in and check out; it can also help users meet health and safety regulations by monitoring room occupancy, HID adds.
The solution uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and the developers say offers accuracy, even in large, open spaces and areas in which it has historically been challenging to bring in RFID. HID Location Services includes a cloud service, portals and Bluetooth beacons in the form of HID smart cards for indoor positioning services and physical access control. Its cloud-based model the firm adds cuts out infrastructure setup of antennas, servers and wired infrastructure to further reduce total cost of ownership. The installation entails plugging in AC-powered BLE/Wi-Fi gateways and providing personnel with the smart card beacon.
Other uses HID suggests include building automation and life safety management and compliance.
