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New players enter the PropTech industry all of the time.\u00a0 Whether they are launching a new spin on existing technology, or an innovative new solution, rarely is it a newsworthy event.\u00a0 It takes time to execute a go-to-market strategy, and although there will always be early adopters, mass adoption never happens overnight.\u00a0 However, every once in a while an established company enters the space that has the ability to make a huge splash.\u00a0 And that is exactly what is occurring with Apple in PropTech.<\/p>\n
In fairness, Apple has been playing a part in the PropTech industry for years since most companies that service the Real Estate sector offer an IOS App, but Apple is now getting directly involved in the industry and the implications are enormous.\u00a0 Apple announced last year that they are finally opening up Near-Field Communication (NFC) for Access Control in the Commercial Real Estate industry.<\/p>\n
When most people think about access control, they think of the proximity cards and fobs that they use to get into their office.\u00a0 These types of plastic credentials are still carried by millions of people in the workforce, but a seismic shift began to take place about 7 years ago with the launch of digital credentials.\u00a0 A digital credential refers to the use of a cell phone (instead of a card or fob) to grant access to a secure location (doors, turnstiles, elevators\u2026).\u00a0 Many companies have rolled out digital credentials over the past few years, and while they each have their own unique twist, most of them operate on the same type of technology:\u00a0 Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE).\u00a0 BLE is a feature that comes standard with every smartphone, regardless if it operates on IOS or Android.\u00a0 Both Apple and Google permit third party developers to build solutions leveraging their built in BLE feature, making it an ideal technology to power digital credentials.\u00a0 When an access control app is opened and within range of a card reader, the door unlocks and access is granted.\u00a0 In addition to added convenience, digital credentials can offer benefits that you cannot get through a proximity card or fob such as location based services.\u00a0 Additionally, credential management becomes infinitely more convenient for occupiers and property managers who historically had to meet with every employee in-person to distribute, collect, and track hundreds (if not thousands) of plastic credentials every time an employee was hired, fired, or misplaced their existing card or fob.\u00a0 Lastly, since there are many different formats of physical credentials, an employee that has access rights to work from different offices across multiple cities often needs to carry a stack of cards with them.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
NFC technology is not new, but Apple has always restricted its use to ApplePay.\u00a0 Android has permitted NFC for other applications, but companies have been reluctant to utilize it for purposes such as Access Control because <\/span>more than half of the US population<\/a> owns an iPhone, and they would be excluded.\u00a0 Now that Apple is permitting developers to build access control apps that utilize NFC, the game has officially changed.<\/span><\/p>\n There are pros and cons to utilizing one technology over the other for access control.\u00a0 The benefit of using BLE is its read-range.\u00a0 BLE read-ranges can be customized to work from distances ranging from a few inches to as far as 15 feet.\u00a0 This flexible read range can activate a wide range of experiences such as hands free access.\u00a0 A person can keep their phone in their pocket and unlock a door without the need to hold their phone up to the reader.\u00a0 This can be very convenient when you are carrying boxes (or cups of coffee), so that you do not need to be a professional juggler to figure out how to take your phone out of your pocket and hold it up to a card reader in order to open a door.\u00a0 Other benefits of a long read-range include opening garage gates from a distance so that you do not need to come to a complete stop and roll down your window while holding your phone out of the car.<\/p>\n