1. Touchless Technologies – Commanding with Gaze, Gestures, Proximity, and More…
For 100 years, elevators have had buttons that make the elevator move. Motion sensing doors and lights are found everywhere today, so how could these principles be brought into an elevator? Recent years have seen plenty of advances in proximity controlling, which give the opportunity for more accurate user input than general motion sensors in doorways. What’s more, gaze and gesture tracking technologies are great examples of how intuitive movements can be used to call an elevator, tell which floor you would like to go to or hold the door open.
2. Usage and Utilization Tracking
Controlling indoor environments depends on knowing how spaces are utilized. One important place is the elevator carriage itself, but a potentially broader case is that of the elevator lobby. Measuring how many pass through an area can inform us about adjusting air conditioning to ensure fresh air in a building. A more specific application could involve elevator control. Making sure a full elevator carriage doesn’t get called unnecessarily helps here too. Knowing how many people an area deals with can also inform us of how to guide them through the building, which brings us to our next area…
3. Real-Time Updating Signage
Let’s take the example of office buildings: entrances are packed in the morning and late afternoon when people come to and leave from work respectively. In a building that monitors health and well-being, usage data can be used to create digital signage that guides people away from crowded areas. Displays around buildings can direct to specific elevators and stairways based on the number of people in the area at the time. Respecting distances between people can also be enabled this way. Corridors with fewer people can be preferred in real-time updating signs to help end-users make decisions about which route to take if they wish to avoid close contact.
4. Cutting-Edge Approaches to Disinfection
Elevators get cleaned daily. If they are heavily used, this is done many times a day. Helping staff with disinfecting can involve automated solutions, as well as new equipment, materials, and agents that combat microbes and pathogens effectively. We are looking for solutions to take disinfection processes to the next level. Examples of new technologies include UV-light, plasma, or ionization-based disinfection. If you are working on developing any of these or more, we are interested in discussing how this could be utilized for cleaning elevator carriages.
5. Materials and Surfaces
So far we’ve covered what we can do to surfaces. Well, how about what can surfaces do to us? Probably the most futuristic example of surface innovation are materials and surfaces that can disinfect themselves. And why stop at disinfection? Materials that repel dirt help the cause. Designing surfaces so they do not need to be touched can go a long way. The possibilities are not just limited to new technology or material innovation!
Let’s Come Up with 5 More, Together!
These are only some examples to get a submission started. The most helpful solutions might be the most surprising ones. If you think you have anything, whether on this list or not, that you could develop with KONE’s team. Please let us hear from you!
The KONE New Health & Well-Being Solutions Opportunity is accepting submissions until June 7th, 2020. Get in touch with us here!