The Covid-19 pandemic propelled technologies that would otherwise not have gained traction and viability or may not have become reality had it not been for the pandemic. Technology viability is to a large extent a product of volume and scale but is often also influenced by external factors, niche market demands or similar trends.
Biometric access control technology has grown substantially especially in markets that face high levels of crime and in main stream enterprises with reasonably large numbers of employees working at offices, manufacturing plants and the like. Biometric access control systems automate and integrate attendance, payment, crime prevention and other functionalities. In South Africa fingerprint scanning is the most commonly used biometric functionality. This market dominance was impacted by the pandemic.
Functionalities that do not require physical touching quickly gained traction during the pandemic. So called wave functionality matches fingerprints of a number of fingers with a single hand movement. It implements contact-less technology and overcomes challenges such as wet fingers. It is ideal for high traffic areas. The uptake has increased exponentially especially at high end resident estates.