CUNEF fitted escutcheons to monitor and ease access to different areas of the university for 1,600 students, without the need for expensive wired door locks. If a student loses their card, there’s no threat to campus security. A manager issues a new credential which automatically cancels the lost card — much faster than changing a lock.

And when Mezzino took ownership of Rialto Court — apartments for students attending Durham University and Teesside University — they replaced a mechanical master key system with Smartair. From the company’s point of view, the high annual tenant turnover and a need for scheduled cleaning and summer shutdown were becoming difficult to manage with physical keys.

Students also reaped the benefits of their new, user-friendly access system. They have the confidence no previous resident of their flat has copied a physical key.

At Funway Academic Resort in Madrid, student rooms are also locked with Smartair escutcheons. Energy-saving wall devices inside rooms regulate electricity use, and students each have their own safe locked with a Smartair cabinet lock. The Funway gym, study rooms, games rooms, swimming pool and changing rooms, spa and staff areas are also locked with Smartair escutcheons — and open with the same smart-card.

There is still more to come from Smartair. The recent launch of the Smartair Openow solution puts credentials on a mobile phone. With Smartair and the Openow app, students can open their rooms and authorised doors with a smartphone. If you have your phone, you are already carrying your keys.

Student services or facilities managers issue virtual keys over-the-air — and can revoke them whenever they choose — so there’s no need for a key-card handover meeting, at the beginning or end of term. A time-limited virtual key arrives ahead of the first day and automatically expires when it’s time to vacate the halls.

A virtual key on every student’s smartphone potentially provides an extra layer of biometric protection for every controlled university door. Fingerprint, and even face and iris, scanners are commonplace on smartphones.

”Generation Z students were raised as digital natives,” says Felix Moran, Smartair Product Manager at Assa Abloy. ”They expect convenience as a standard feature.

The complete Smartair solution includes wireless escutcheons, cylinders, wall readers, locker locks and more; the intuitive Smartair TS1000 software; and the enhanced new Openow app functionality.