Coronavirus Spurs Demand for Touchless Technology

Two weeks ago, Proxy, a San Francisco–based startup, was focusing its marketing on its ability to provide secure access to buildings with a mobile phone app rather than plastic cards and credentials. That changed last week.

“The biggest conversation was all about security. Now it is about how to maintain a hygienic environment,” said Proxy co-founder and CEO Denis Mars. His company’s technology allows users to check in at buildings and doctors’ offices and sign on to computers using a Bluetooth signal, all without touching a screen or even taking their phone out of their pocket. 

Up until now, businesses made up the bulk of Proxy’s customers, but Mars said that the California Governor’s Office called Proxy last week to see if the company could help set up hygienic security systems in temporary hospitals or other sites. They have another call scheduled for today.

Kohler, the 146-year-old maker of kitchen and bathroom fixtures, is reporting a surge in sales of touchless faucets and toilets to residential customers. Sales of the company’s “intelligent toilets,” which are equipped with bidets and toilet seats that open and close automatically, increased eightfold during the first two weeks of March compared with the same period a year earlier, according to Nicole Allis, a marketing manager with the company.

There also are signs that consumers are buying hands-free locks for their homes to avoid spreading germs on shared door fixtures. Jason Williams, president of Yale Locks, said sales of touchless locks that can be operated via Bluetooth are up this month compared with the same time last year, and have tripled compared with the first two months of this year. While the locks don’t move the door, the door lever incorporated in the lock can be pushed open with an elbow or a hip, Williams said. 

The company also makes “wave to open” locks for businesses that can be used for bathrooms and other common spaces. Williams said Yale uses this technology in its corporate offices in New Haven, Connecticut.

The U.S. has lagged behind other parts of the world in adopting touchless technology on shared devices. In Asia, the deadly SARS epidemic in 2003 drove widespread acceptance of touchless plumbing fixtures and contactless payments. 

Manual revolving doors, ubiquitous in cities like New York, are rare in Hong Kong, Shanghai or Beijing, where automatic doors are the norm. Most public restrooms in Asia’s big cities have automated faucets and soap dispensers, and are equipped with self-flushing toilets. One advantage these cities have is that most of their malls and office towers were built within the past two decades, meaning they could incorporate modern technology from the outset.

‘The biggest conversation was all about security. Now it is about how to maintain a hygienic environment.’

Another big gap between the U.S. and the rest of the world is the way U.S. consumers pay for things. “We are significantly behind most of the world,” said Jordan McKee, research director at 451 Research, part of S&P Global Market Intelligence. “If you look at countries like Canada, the U.K., Australia, contactless [technology] is a way of life there.”

In Australia, 90% of retail transactions of less than $25 are completed through contactless transactions, such as tap-to-pay credit cards or mobile devices. In contrast, just 2% of in-store transactions in the U.S. were contactless in the last year, said McKee. 

Apple Pay, which launched in 2014, is now accepted by 70% of U.S. merchants, according to information provided by the company. Still, that lags behind countries such as Australia, where 99% of merchants accept Apple Pay, and the U.K. and Poland, where 95% of merchants accept it.

The U.S. is late to the game largely because credit card companies were slow to roll out cards equipped with chips. Other markets have had chip-enabled cards for a decade or longer. Asia and Europe were early movers in large part because they faced higher levels of credit card fraud.

But even contactless payments in the U.S. are often contactless in name only. Transactions initiated by a tap with a credit card or the wave of a phone often require customers to punch in a pin code or sign a screen or a paper receipt to complete the sale, as a protection against fraud. In contrast, it is routine for consumers in China and the rest of Asia to pay via apps such as WeChat and Alipay that don’t force patrons to touch a shared surface. 

Many merchants still insist on getting signatures even though most credit card companies stopped requiring them in 2018. But many merchants have failed to update their point-of-sale equipment to eliminate the signature. Also, restaurants and bars are reluctant to give up the signature page because that is where consumers are accustomed to entering tips, which in the U.S. often generate the majority of servers’ income.

The Covid-19 pandemic might finally spur the U.S. to catch up to the rest of the world on contactless payments, said S&P Global’s McKee. “It won’t happen overnight, but it will likely spark some noticeable momentum.”