By 2021, experts predict that roughly 44 million mobile credentials will be downloaded and used to unlock home and office doors across the globe. However, these numbers don’t take into consideration all the other mobile credentials we use on a daily basis. It’s easy to make your way through theme park turnstiles or general admission at a concert without realizing you just used a form of mobile access control. In fact, the average person most likely uses one to two mobile credentials a week (at the very least) in ways that are more subtle than a smart lock powered key. Below is a list of four overlooked mobile tokens many of us have used before:
Theme Parks
By far the most unnerving experience at theme parks has got to be the ticketing line. If you have ever been to a theme park before the development of smartphone technology, you know exactly what this is referring to. Thankfully, we’re now living in 2018 where mobile ticketing, or eTicketing, has become a solution theme parks like Disney and Universal have implemented into their admissions system to make the ticketing process a lot smoother and significantly less trying. For example, Disney and Universal offer their guests a mobile app where they may go in and purchase theme park tickets. What were once paper tickets, which almost always needed to be printed or physically handed off at a ticket booth, are now QR codes that are ready to scan the moment guests purchase the tickets.
Concerts, Sporting Events, and Plays
One of the biggest ways we all have used mobile credentials is through third-party/online ticketing powerhouses like TicketMaster and StubHub. These sites were created in the same vein of Disney and Universal’s mobile/eTicketing solutions and offer users the ability to obtain tickets to shows online, which are then sent to consumers via an email with an embedded QR or barcode. Now sports fans, theatre lovers, and concert-goers can enjoy the ease of purchasing digital tickets and can focus more of their attention on what really matters: the event.
Airports
Another way a majority of us have used mobile credentials is through electronic boarding passes. Back in 2007, the TSA started to allow travelers to use e-passes instead of physical tickets. Ever since the release of this mobile innovation, over 102 airports have implemented e-pass scanners into their check-in and boarding process and almost 1 billion people have used the more convenient mobile boarding pass. It’s expected that by 2019, over 1.5 billion travelers will be using e-passes over their paper counterparts.
eWallet Apps
If you’ve ever used Apple, Samsung, or Android Pay, then you have used a form of mobile credentials. These apps digitize your credit cards and communicate through Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and Near Field Communication (NFC). Stores either install BLE and NFC-enabled POS systems or they rely on NFC beacons to transmit the embedded data from our phones to the checkout counter. Wallet apps like the ones listed above, as well as Venmo and Paypal are expected to account for 503 billion dollars of global purchases by 2020.
Connect the Digital and Physical Worlds
Mobile credentials are taking many different forms in our everyday lives. Several have reached a point where they are speeding up, or completely eliminating some of the most tedious tasks we’ve had to do in the past. As mobile credentials become a more widely adopted solution, more companies are taking notice and partnering with platform companies like UniKey to build a mobile solution for their goods and services. At UniKey, our products and solutions are motivated by our goal of building seamless and smarter access for our homes, offices, and cars that can keep up with digital consumers and innovators. To learn more about mobile credentials and simplifying the way the world accesses everything, visit unikey.com.
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