 Welcome to this episode of Door Hardware Nerds. I'm your host, Mia Merrill. Today, I'm joined by Kevin Waring. Kevin, please introduce yourself. Yeah, thanks Mia. Hi everybody. Kevin Waring, I'm the director of business development here for Norton at Rickson within Oslo Abloy. Been on the team for just over four years now and have spent over 15 years in the industry and happy to be here today to talk about some touchless products. Great, we're very happy that you're joining us today. So, let's talk about touchless because of the big trend with germ avoidance right now. What trends have you been seeing on the door control side of things as a result of COVID-19? Wow, there's a lot to be said about that with the trends that have shifted over the past, say 18 months since COVID really came into play. You know, initially, if we look back maybe two or three years ago, automated operators were really only considered for maybe a restroom application or a healthcare facility or even for just ADA compliance. Fast forward that to today and we see touchless solutions and touchless operators being used in every aspect of our daily lives. It's no longer just the restroom or the hospital facility. We think of office spaces, we think of retail spaces. Now even into, I was in a bicycle shop not that long ago and they put an automated solution in there so that people didn't have to touch the door. Really is all led by people that are a little bit of afraid to touch openings or touch germs or really driven by the COVID virus that's out there. Yeah, so aside from the operators, what other touch points can we do, eliminate to reduce them in a facility? I mean, I think that as you go through different openings and we look at really, I mean, the aspect of touching it, you think of a door, right? You're gonna walk through a door, you're gonna push that open. If it's not an automated solution that's a fully automated, what are some of the lesser touch solutions that can be done? Can you have a push and pull paddle or can you have a foot pull to open that door? Or even if it's not just the automated operator where you think of you're pushing a button on the side of the wall, now everything's activated by a way to open switch. So they don't even have to touch the square boxes or round boxes that are on this side of the wall now. So just some of the different ways that you can add a solution into your facility. Yeah, I think it too is all dependent on the price point of a facility when they're making these modifications, they're time to execute, as well as their appetite for modifications around a door, right? So bringing in an operator, if they don't already have an opening that's prepped for that, they've got to run wires around a door. Whereas on the hardware side of things, we can, if they've already got a door that has a mortise lock in it, we can either trade out that mortise lock for one with paddle trim or in some cases, we can just send them a paddle trim kit where they leave their lock in the door and put the trim kit right on the outside. So it's dependent on what they're looking to do and how fast. And it's a great way to easily upgrade a facility, right? You don't necessarily have to jump right to an automated solution. There's a lot of in the middle steps that you can really take to provide the solutions that your customers or the facilities are looking for. So great opportunities exist everywhere. Yeah, and that the DSS Safer to Open Continuum really shows that whole wide range of products from less touch all the way to touchless with the operators and automation. A lot of solutions out there for sure. Yeah, so can you walk me through what's the difference between low energy operators and sliders? Sure, so I guess first I'll back up by saying low energy versus high energy which is the category that sliders would fall into. So think of a traditional door, a traditional swing door that's a low energy solution that you wanna automate. Something that doesn't require a high speed or high force to open. It's a convenience factor, it's a touchless solution and it's gonna swing that door to open that door in a slow, controlled and safe, I guess, environment is the way to say it. Change that over to your high energy solutions that doors operate very rapidly. They're used almost 100% exclusive for automated openings every time it goes through. It's not a blend of sometimes I'm gonna go through the door manually, sometimes I'm gonna go through it automated. It's always think about the hospital emergency rooms, right, the sliders. And what that really plays into is you need to look at the needs of the customer that we're talking to in the facility because oftentimes we find that they really want an automated solution but they don't have the space that it might take out. I mean, if you've gone through, let's say a target or an emergency room, the sliders take up an incredible amount of space and while they're very fast and efficient, they do have a big install footprint associated with them whereas you could take any swing door, for example, and make it an automated solution with a low energy and it's in a safe environment. You don't have to think about what other safety sensors do I need, what other mats or rails do I need to put around the opening? So just from a high level, that's some of the things that we look at when we're comparing a low energy versus a high energy or a slider solution. But in the end, it really turns down to the needs of the facility and what they're trying to accomplish. Yeah, I think about like my office door. I have a Norton operator on my office door. I was one of the test sites for it, I'm lucky. Perks of working at OSSA, right? But yeah, we would never be able to turn that into a sliding door. So nice swinging door, good application for one of these operator. Well, and you think too, what you can do with a low energy swing door, I mean, you can control it. I don't know how your office is set up. Maybe you have a fob that you can click that fob to open the door and have it stay in a hold open position to let people know that you're available. And of course, when you have that meeting come up, oops, go ahead and click that door and close it or maybe you're in a private meeting with an employee that you need to talk to. A lot of solutions like that you can do. And even on those applications, you can set it to where you have a feature like a power assist where you only have to put a light amount of energy to go ahead and open that door. And really great, we think of the assisted living facilities that are out there, right? You put a low energy door operator on one of these facilities. Now you have somebody who might not be as physically able to go through it, but they're not quite completely incapacitated to do so. It takes the weight of that door and makes it really light and allow them to swing through. So, you know, a lot of great advantages to go with the low energy solutions. All right, any final thoughts today? No, I just appreciate the time to have a quick chat. It's always good to catch up with you and I look forward to many more of these. Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you so much for coming on with me today. There will be a link below for the Hands-Free Opening Solutions website where you can find lots of information about all the different solutions we talked about. And it will give you the most up-to-date product offerings. It'll include our Safer to Open Continuum, which will show you our less touch to touch less offerings. If you're interested in any of the products we talked about, but you don't know who to reach out to, I've also included a link to your local DSS office. Please like this video and subscribe to our channel. Thanks for joining us. Thanks everybody.