blueSmart secures the tourist centre
22.09.2021 - Innsbruck Tourismus relies on electronic access management from Winkhaus.
A building from the Renaissance is home to the employees of Innsbruck Tourismus, the official destination management agency for the city of Innsbruck. An electronic blueSmart locking system secures the listed building and thus demonstrates how flexibly innovative technology can be when faced with historical buildings, modern working life and around 500,000 visitors annually.
The organisation in the old town of Innsbruck is the place to go for guests and hosts. In addition to the city, 40 villages along the river Inn also fall under the tourist centre’s catchment area. The different elements of the professional tourism information service converge in the building erected in 1520. Innsbruck Tourismus employs 85 people here, whose working environment covers almost 4,000 square metres of space over three floors. The heart is the information hall, which is open seven days a week.
Flexible technology
A mechanical locking system from Winkhaus has been reliably securing the building for several decades. However, convenience, flexibility and the option of disabling the key in the event of loss were good arguments for purchasing an electronic locking system. The conversion took place smoothly, “without dirt and with minimal technical effort,” explains Christoph Stock, Director of Innsbruck Tourismus. The electronic blueSmart door cylinders work offline and have the same dimensions as mechanical door cylinders. This means that the doors do not have to be extensively converted or wired.
The local Schlüsselzentrale Seidemann KG was responsible for advising and installing the system. Sales Manager Klaus Linser has been working successfully with Winkhaus for a long time and particularly appreciates the support provided by the traditional company. “I can find a competent contact person here at any time. You can tell that Winkhaus is a family-owned company,” he reports.
Smart interface
He and his team installed 51 door cylinders with a long battery life of up to ten years in a wide variety of doors at Innsbruck Tourismus. Plus an upload reader. It was the only system component that had to be wired. It is the interface in the locking system’s virtual network and is directly connected to the PC for system management. The electronic blueSmart key is inserted there, recognised and loaded with the respective access authorisation. In this way, the upload reader assigns up-to-date authorisations for temporary and local access. It can also be used to log locking events.
Handy keys for hygienic door opening
Innsbruck Tourismus ordered around 150 electronic blueSmart keys for employees and external staff. Programming the components and managing the locking system is straightforward and can be done by the company’s own IT department using the Winkhaus blueControl Virtual software. The tourism experts liked the fact that the keys are lightweight and easy to handle. They can continue their usual locking behaviour, as the stable identification medium is inserted into the electronic cylinder and rotated – the latch is then retracted. This additionally prevents unnecessary contact with surfaces.
The key is also responsible for transferring information quickly and wirelessly between the electronic components of the system. Made of high-performance plastic, the key is robust and maintenance-free, resistant to disinfectants and can even withstand washing (IP 68). It has an RFID chip inside, which stores user rights and transports commands in the virtual network as well as data read from door components. If a key is lost, it is deactivated in the Innsbruck Tourismus IT system with just a few clicks. If someone then tries to obtain an access authorisation via the upload reader mounted on the outside, they will be immediately identified as unauthorised by the reader. It is then no longer possible to upload access rights.
Virtual network
Disabling a key takes effect quickly because the blueSmart network works virtually. The offline, cable-free system consists of built-in electronic components which communicate with one another. Unlike conventional online access control systems, there is no need for extensive cabling, a large number of converters or interference-prone radio links. With blueSmart, locking systems with up to 196,000 components can be implemented in this way. The system is installed quickly and easily as, with this virtual network, only the so-called upload readers, which automate and distribute the information and commands for the user in the background in the virtual network, are conventionally wired.
With the conversion to the electronic blueSmart locking system, the protection of the historic building made the leap into the digital age – problem-free, visually neutral and without any construction effort. Unnoticed by the numerous visitors from all over the world, the security of the building has been significantly improved and the building management optimally organised for its users.
