05 Jan COVID Creates High Demand for Thermal Technologies
In the days before COVID-19, thermometers were an afterthought. You might have had an inexpensive home thermometer in your medicine cabinet which you used a few times per year, but you’d rarely find a thermometer in an office.
Fast forward less than a year and thermometers are one of the top tools we use to control a lethal pandemic. It’s not surprising that demand has spiked, and not just for personal thermometers. More and more businesses are investing in advanced thermal technologies to scan employees’ temperatures each day, blocking anyone with a fever from entering the office.
This has happened in the US as well as around the world. In fact, let’s take a look at how COVID-19 has changed the thermal technology market.
The Market for Thermal Technology
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the demand for thermal technology has grown, but the numbers are staggering. Consider the “before and after.”
In 2019, before COVID-19 became widespread, the worldwide market for thermal scanners was worth $3.4 billion. It was expected to increase with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.8% from 2020-2027.
Those projections changed dramatically with the COVID-19 pandemic. A study published in August 2020 projected to market to skyrocket to $7.6 billion by 2027 with a CAGR of 8.9%. That’s close to double the projections from 2019.
Why Demand for Thermal Temperature Scanner Technology is Rising
When we talk about “thermal scanning technologies,” we’re talking about tools for contactless temperature screening like touchless thermometer devices and large-scale temperature scanners. Why has the demand for these increased in particular? It turns out that there are several reasons.
Wider Uses
Before we were living through a major pandemic, the only businesses that typically had use for thermal scanners were physician offices and some security companies. Even then, many of those healthcare providers used standard thermometers instead of contactless scanners.
Today, many employers and businesses are taking a temperature measurement for each person that comes through their doors. They’re also looking for contactless options for these temperature screenings so they don’t put an employee at risk by requiring them to get close to each person to take their temperature. Now that there are more reasons to want a temperature scanner, more consumers are adding to the demand in the market.
Privacy Options
Another challenge with thermometers in COVID-19 has been privacy. With a traditional thermometer, someone has to take your temperature and see the reading so they can decide whether to let you into the office. That means they’re getting private data about your health.
To answer the concern, innovators in the thermal scanning industry are developing more secure, private ways to screen for a fever. For instance, the spinTouch RapidScreen automatically scans each person as they walk up to the kiosk. It shows them a green light if they’ve passed the temperature check or a red light if they have a fever.
For those with a fever, the kiosk can integrate with many security systems to block entry. Otherwise, your reception staff can watch and make sure the person doesn’t enter. Regardless, no one sees or stores the person’s exact temperature so employees maintain their privacy.
More Awareness of Sick Days
Employee illnesses have always been expensive for employers. In fact, employee illnesses were costing US employers $530 billion per year as of 2018, between work absences and lost productivity. Because of COVID-19, though, these costs have soared and have come into the spotlight so more employers are paying attention to them.
This means they’re more likely to take measures in the future to stop COVID-19 from spreading throughout their workforces. Temperature screening is one of the most effective ways to meet that goal, so an efficient thermometer device is more of an investment than an expense.
Looking to the Future
COVID-19 isn’t the first major pandemic the world has seen, and it won’t be the last. Even beyond COVID-19, employers often struggle with employee illnesses during cold and flu season because those illnesses spread quickly too.
Fortunately, a temperature reader doesn’t just identify possible COVID-19 infections. Fevers appear in a wide range of illnesses, so by blocking everyone who has a fever, employers can expect to reduce the spread of many types of illnesses. One piece of technology can protect their workforce from the flu season as well as other pandemics that come our way.
Increased Safety Awareness
Most employees didn’t think of their offices as risks to their health in the past. Because of how contagious COVID-19 is, though, it’s made people think far more about the risks they run each day by coming into close contact with others. They’re realizing that this puts them in the line of fire for COVID-19 as well as the flu and countless other contagious diseases.
As a result, there is a growing social pressure on employers to protect their employees’ health. By adding precautions like a temperature station, employers can improve their brand’s image while caring for their top assets: their staff.
Seamless Integrations
Security is a top concern for businesses across all industries, so many already have security technology. Perhaps employees have key cards they must scan to get access to the building for example.
The right no touch thermometer can integrate so well into these security measures that businesses can add the temperature scanning with little or no disruption to their usual process. It makes temperature screening a more viable option for a large number of employers, which adds to the demand for those screening products.
For example, many employers integrate RapidScreen with their door access. Employees use the kiosk to both take their temperature and scan their access card, and if they pass both of those security measures, the door unlocks.
Getting Your Temperature Scanner Early
Market projections show the demand for thermal scanners increasing dramatically over the coming years. Whether manufacturers can produce enough of that technology to meet those growing demands, however, remains to be seen.
To make sure you get what you need, now is the time to buy your thermal scanner. Find out more about what the spinTouch RapidScreen has to offer.
