Antwerp, Friday 17 April 2020 – Technology company Rombit launches a digital bracelet to prevent coronavirus infections on the workfloor. The solution allows employees in construction, logistics and other heavy industries to resume work safely. Port of Antwerp will be the first to use this innovative bracelet.
To produce this bracelet Rombit has added new functions to its existing safety bracelet, the Romware ONE. This will help employees to observe the strict precautions laid down by the World Health Organisation (WHO) while respecting the privacy of the wearer.
The initiative is also a response to the call by the Flemish Government to create digital solutions for helping society through the current corona crisis.
Physical distancing en contact tracing
John Baekelmans, CEO Rombit explains: “In order to resume their operations in a safely manner, employers must be able to ensure compliance with the applicable Covid-19 prevention measures and to provide their employees with the right tools to work safely.”
The new Covid bracelet is aimed in the first place at physical distancing. Whenever employees come too close to one another they first get a warning signal. However privacy is guaranteed: the Covid Radius never passes on the location or other sensitive information to the employer.
At the same time the bracelet permits contact tracing: if someone happens to be infected then a health advisor or trusted confidant can check which work colleagues the person has come in contact with, in order to prevent further infection.
Specifically for industrial environments
Smartphone applications have a larger margin of error, which leads to false positives or negatives. Moreover, they are often not usable in an industrial context: workers don’t always have smartphones nearby and mobile coverage is not always reliable, especially indoors.
Rombit uses technologies that also work without an internet connection. That’s why the Covid Radius is a powerful solution for sectors such as logistics, construction and heavy industries.
Antwerp Port Authority is first to test
Port of Antwerp, which recently introduced a project with the Romware ONE safety bracelet, will be the first to make use of the Covid functions.
Port of Antwerp CEO Jacques Vandermeiren: “Innovation and digital transformation are crucial in times of crisis such as these. It is essential to keep the port operational, and to ensure that our employees can work safely. We therefore see great potential in this solution and will shortly start trials with a team of operatives.”
“Innovation and digitisation are crucial in times of crisis.
Jacques Vandermeiren, CEO Port of Antwerp
Rombit CEO John Baekelmans: “The new ‘1.5 metre economy’ depends on reliable aids. We are therefore making huge efforts to get the modified digital bracelet onto the mass market in large quantities, so that we can contribute towards getting the economy safely restarted. There is already great international interest.”
Port alderman Annick De Ridder: “It is fundamental that our economy can get back to full speed as soon as possible and that we focus on ways to ensure that this restart will proceed safely. As the port of Antwerp, we are happy to contribute by taking up our social role and functioning as a testing ground for technological innovation.”
Rombit’s Romware Covid Radius will be available in a limited edition from May 2020.
