Marrying access control to wearable technology will vastly improve user experience while boosting security, says Brivo Labs.

Brivo Labs was into wearable technology long before wearable technology was cool.

"The lanyard with an access control card on it is a wearable, so we’ve been in it for years," said Lee Odess, general manager of the Bethesda, Md.-based company that has sold access control products for 15-plus years.

About a year ago, Brivo Labs decided to get into the burgeoning market for enterprise wearable technology. The overarching goal, Odess said, is to make access control and security "more contextual and dynamic."

To do so, the company created an API called SAM and a reference application for Google Glass called OKDoor to "show the flexibility of the system and start a conversation around wearables in the workplace."

OKDoor interacts with an exterior camera and pushes a photo of a person seeking admittance to a building to a Google Glass wearer, who can then remotely allow entry or deny access.

The app showcases several capabilities facilitated by the API, including device management, access to hosted IP video, and remote automation.

In August Brivo Labs rolled out Randivoo, a cloud-based app that streamlines the identity and access control process and puts more control into the hands of users.

The app can be used with a Nymi wearable, which employs an identifying "signature" based on a wearer’s heartbeat. In the future, it will work with other wearables as well, Odess said.