Using a smartphone and Bluetooth technology, a user can access a door while on the move and at a distance.

The latest access control systems offer more secure and sophisticated credentials, while introducing new credential form factors including mobile devices that make it more convenient to open doors and gates.

Mobile access control also delivers a simple and user-friendly secure identity management process to access facilities, while paving the way for integrated, multi-layered physical access control (PACS) and IT security solutions down the road.

One of the most attractive opportunities for access control solutions on mobile devices involves the use of Bluetooth Smart connections and gesture technology.

Bluetooth combined with gesture technology enables users to open doors from a distance by rotating their smartphone as they approach a mobile-enabled reader.

Using gesture technology in this way significantly improves the user experience while adding an authentication factor to the existing access control rule set that goes beyond something the cardholder “has” (the card) to include a gesture-based version of something the cardholder “knows” (like a password or personal identification number, or PIN).

Gesture-based access control will also increase speed and minimize the possibility of a rogue device surreptitiously stealing the user’s credential in a “bump and clone” attack.

Entering with a Twist of the Phone
In much the same way that mouse technology was a disruptive innovation that revolutionized the computer interface, gesture-based technology is poised to change how users open doors today and perform many other access control tasks in the future.