A deep dive into location services

Location services are at the core of Accessia’s open physical security platform, pairing with next-generation mobile access control to deliver life safety features, and room analytics for enhanced occupancy and usage data. Here, we take a deep dive into how they work and the benefits they deliver. 
 
What are location services?  
Location services are technologies that help understand the movement or whereabouts of people within a particular space, without the need for badging on readers. For example, as people enter, exit, and move around a workplace, using meeting rooms and other spaces. This can provide useful data into where people are in an emergency and precise insight into room occupancy and usage.  
 
How do location services work? 
Accessia location services use discreet Bluetooth beacons positioned around a workplace to send signals to Accessia on mobile. This powers live workplace information such as last-seen locations and detailed room usage reports at a user level. 
 
How do location services work in combination with access control? 
Location services deliver powerful data as a standalone technology and really come into their own when combined with Accessia ultra-wideband mobile access control. With UWB running on a user’s phone, Accessia readers can pick up signals and provide more precise location information without a door entry taking place. In this way, Accessia Reader can act as an added signal point for location services, alongside Bluetooth beacons, and offer more exact insight into user location than any other access control credential, be it mobile IDs such as BLE, or NFC cards and fobs. 
 
How do Accessia location services support life safety? 
Because Accessia on mobile enables exact entry and exit information (without the need for badging in or out), it makes it far easier to understand who has left the building or who is still onsite at any given time. Coupled with a ‘last-seen’ location for each user, this makes roll call and lockdown far more efficient when an incident or emergency is ongoing. 
Precise location and movement information on a user level also makes it simple to monitor occupancy in rooms and spaces, and to ensure that capacity is not being exceeded and that thresholds are being met.  
 
What benefits do Accessia location services offer beyond security and safety? 
Location services can offer value to the wider organization, including HR, facilities, and operations teams, by providing meaningful data into which meeting rooms, communal spaces, or collaboration areas are used by which teams and when. This information can then be used to increase operational efficiency, augment the at-work experience, and ensure that floor space is optimized.  

Accessia’s location services complement our next-generation ultra-wideband access control to deliver precise intelligence to support life safety. It also delivers meaningful data that helps improve experience and efficiency.  
 
For more information, get in touch today for a demo.