Healthcare - Thermal scanning kiosk application

This kiosk application was built at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when places like airports, hospitals, schools and campuses needed a way to check people’s temperatures at the door without a member of staff standing there doing it by hand.

Overview

The brief was simple to state and urgent to deliver: a kiosk that a visitor walks up to, that reads their temperature from a wireless thermal camera, and that responds based on the reading, all without physical contact and without a queue.

The problem

Manual temperature checks had three problems at once. They were slow, so entrances backed up. They were inconsistent, because a tired person with a handheld thermometer makes mistakes. And they put a staff member in close contact with every single visitor, which was exactly what everyone was trying to avoid.

On top of that, every site wanted slightly different behaviour: different thresholds, different instructions on screen, different next steps for a high reading.

Our approach

We built the kiosk interface in React and paired it with a thermal camera connected wirelessly, so the hardware could sit where it had the best view rather than being tethered to the screen. The camera detects a person entering its field of view, takes a reading, and the kiosk shows the appropriate response.

Because sites needed to configure it themselves, we made thresholds, messaging and the flow after a reading adjustable rather than baked in. Given the timeline, we shipped a working version quickly and refined it in place as it went into real buildings.

What we built

• A kiosk interface that scans a person on approach and shows a clear pass or hold result.
• Wireless thermal camera integration, so the camera can be positioned for the best line of sight.
• Per-site configuration for temperature thresholds, on-screen instructions and what happens after a reading.
• Data capture for each scan, available to authorised staff.

The outcome

Buildings could screen everyone coming in without a person doing it manually and without a bottleneck at the door. The kiosks were deployed across several colleges in the United States during the period when that capability was hard to find and needed immediately.