Pulse

Elo Access: the first line of triage for a safe gaming environment

By Lewis - 4 March 2021

Kristin Roubie, Director of Business Development at Elo Touch Solutions, details how the Elo Access Solution empowers businesses with a first line of triage to ensure a safe environment. Kristin begins by explaining how Elo’s development priorities and company focus has evolved in the last twelve months.

Internally, we have adapted to the current travel restrictions and have been doing our best to work with our team members and ensure everybody is staying healthy. As far as our business priorities are concerned, we have definitely moved things around based on where the world has taken us.

We understand that our core customers have shifted their way of doing business, so we have adjusted our marketing language and how we’re communicating the use cases of our products, as well as adding new products such as Elo Access and developing our Temperature Sensor Pro Edge Connect accessory.

While we developed the Temperature Sensor Pro, we quickly sprung up a wellness questionnaire application for EloView, our managed operating system for Android devices. This enabled our current and new customers to do their best at securing their entry points immediately without needing to develop new software and technology, which takes time and money.

Is Elo Access testament to how Elo’s development team has adapted to the challenges and opportunities Covid-19 has given rise to?

Absolutely. We had the facial recognition module and facial detection technology already built into some of our capabilities as we were launching our 3D camera.

Due to us being a smaller company compared to the mammoth Samsung’s of the world, we are able to be nimble and switch how we are utilising our technology. Elo Access is about how we can do our part to help our customers and society in this difficult time.

Recently, we have been having a lot more conversations with access control companies. Whilst historically they were security companies with a lock and key, recent years has seen technology begin to take over and the last year has sped up the process.

This was a market we had never worked in before but as our technology has developed and we’re seeing different needs, we’re finding new markets at a time when other companies are struggling to keep value and their customer base.

Of course, we have struggled just like any other company and sales are down as is the nature of going through a global pandemic with product shortages and the like. However, for the most part we have remained steadfast, launching several new products.

For instance, at the beginning of this year we announced the launch of our handheld. We’re continuing to grow and launch products, but we are also evolving our story and how our products are used.

What is Elo Access?

Elo Access is a non-medical grade wellness check kiosk that serves as the first line of triage to ensure a safe environment. It is not necessarily an access control product, but it helps clear people for access into a facility to help businesses do the best that they can to ensure individuals entering are low risk and healthy.

By including the optional questionnaire, Elo Access offers a flexible and scalable solution capable of more than simple temperature reading. I really see this solution having a long future, empowering business as much as possible with regards to disease prevention.

How does the rapid wellness screening work?

We are in a very unique position because our standard go-to-market principle is that we offer hardware, and platform to third party ISVs who utilise our SDKs to create API calls and develop software leveraging our hardware.

Now, not only do we have the all-in-one display and IR camera that seamlessly attaches to a VR edge connect system, but we also offer a full-blown application which does the screening for the wellness questionnaire and the temperature sensing.

Today, the rapid screening based on Covid-related symptoms is extremely important but in the future Elo Access could instead ask about flu symptoms or overall wellness. In terms of visitor management when people are entering a facility, you can gather information whilst they check-in.

Companies have a lot of flexibility on what information they want to gather and how they want to use the application going forward. It’s a big differentiator.

How much emphasis has been placed on ease of use?

As a sales leader, this is something I always push back on the team as we’re developing new products – it has to be easy. Everyone is so stretched these days, so we need to make sure that what we’re bringing to market it is easy to buy, sell, deploy, install, and integrate. This is demonstrated in our rapid wellness screens.

The product is being left to office managers, HR and receptionists to set up – not our normal high level technical customer base. Making sure the screens are as close to plug and play as possible with a level of customisation was extremely important to Elo and it was necessary in order to compete and make this something viable for the public.

How does Elo Access identify and enforce mask wearing?

With the facial recognition and detection capability, we have mask detection built in. In the back end, you have the ability to enable or disable this facial mask detection. If enabled, our software allows users only as far as hitting begin before shutting down and requesting a face mask to continue.

How does the contact tracing element work? How is the information handled and used?

Currently, the way the information is handled means we have a reporting functionality built into the Elo Access application. Whoever has administrative access is able to run reports based on that.

In addition, when someone does have an elevated temperature or is flagged as being at risk, the admin or whoever has been dedicated to get notified of high-risk individuals will receive an immediate notification that someone has failed the rapid screening.

We provide the tools for contact tracing, but it is down to our customers what they do with them. It is up to individual businesses to develop their own process and workflows: what is the next level of escalation? Should someone with a raised temperature go to another checkpoint where they have an additional screening with a medical grade temperature sensor? Should they fill in a questionnaire to learn more about why that person failed?

It is ultimately down to the business to decide how to notify people who may have been exposed.

Does Elo Access have a long-term future?

Our solution is not a one trick pony. Elo Access is able to evolve as our needs change. It has been designed leveraging standard Elo products that are being used for use cases such as self-service, visitor management and interactive signage, giving users the ability to customised and expanded their experience as their needs evolve.

In addition, we have full integration capabilities with third party software, providing them with the tools to utilise features built into all of our technology. Regardless of what the individual need is, we are able to facilitate customer experience, whether it be through our own or a partner’s software.