Enlighted, which specializes in building IoT platforms, announced the availability of its workplace digital contact tracing solution to help employees return safely to offices, manufacturing facilities and pharmaceutical labs.
The company said that its new offering provides digital contact history for employees who self-report testing positive for COVID-19 to help reduce the spread of infection, keep healthy employees safe and productive, and eliminate the manual contact tracing process for employers.
The solution prioritizes data privacy without the need for storing personal information, according to Enlighted. Employees are assigned alphanumeric ID badges while entering the workplace. When an employee self-reports their badge ID and a positive test result, administrators query the Safe application, identify other IDs this badge came in contact with and share the anonymous IDs. Employees carrying those badge IDs can self-identify their exposure.
The Enlighted solution provides employers with location and proximity data to identify who an infected employee came in contact with inside the workplace, for how long and what areas they visited, the company said. The data is used to “inform employees who might be at risk of infection and also drives sanitization efforts in areas the infected employee utilized.” Meanwhile, the application’s dashboard provides information on contacts in the building to assist management in developing safer workplace strategies. Additionally, Enlighted said that the solution identifies how many close contacts are happening in a time period and location to proactively manage risk.
Enlighted noted that customers can add the Safe app to their IoT platform. New customers can install the Enlighted IoT system through sensors in LED lighting or through the new USB-powered surface sensor, which can be applied under desks or in conference rooms.
“The important role of IoT technology in buildings has been further magnified by the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Stefan Schwab, CEO of Enlighted. “The Enlighted sensory system can now provide digital contact tracing. It also lays the foundation for future-proofed buildings ready to help us understand with real-time data the changing nature of our at-work experiences and meet challenges beyond COVID-19.”
Earlier this month, the company had announced the availability of a new sensor to accelerate IoT adoption in buildings. The Surface Sensor is a software upgradable smart “IoT end-point,” able to capture multiple data streams, perform local data processing and wirelessly transmit the data to the Enlighted network and cloud database. This sensory data includes occupancy detection, temperature, ambient lighting levels and is also equipped with Bluetooth LE capabilities to communicate with other IoT devices and applications.
Headquartered in Silicon Valley, Enlighted was acquired in 2018 and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Siemens Industry.
