If you've ever stood in the lobby of any busy office building for more than ten minutes, you’ll spot the friction immediately. You'll see the person juggling a takeaway coffee and a gym bag, trying to fish a plastic rectangle out of their pocket with their elbow. It’s the visitor waiting awkwardly at reception because they printed the wrong QR code.

At Doorflow, we believe that the best access control technology is the kind you don't notice. It should get out of your way and let you move. That’s why we are doubling down on Apple and Google Wallet passes.

It’s not just about getting rid of plastic, wallet passes are about acknowledging how people actually live and move through the world today.

The path of least resistance

It’s a sad reality of modern life that we’re glued to our phones. But for an operations strategist, it’s a useful truth. If the device is already in your hand, using it to open a door makes perfect sense.

Wallet passes take the credentials that usually sit on a lanyard and put them into the native operating system of your phone. There is no app to download and no login screen to forget. It works exactly like the debit card you use to pay for the tube or your morning espresso. You hold your phone near the reader, and the door opens.

When we remove the need to stop and search for a card, we aren't just saving three seconds; we are maintaining the natural flow of movement through a building.

Security that actually works

The standard plastic access card has always been a security liability. If you drop a physical key card on the street, anyone who picks it up can walk into your building until someone realises it’s missing and cancels it.

Wallet passes rely on the security already built into the device. Most modern smartphones require biometric authentication like a fingerprint, face scan or a passcode before they do anything important. If an employee loses their phone, the pass is useless to anyone else because they can't get past the lock screen.

From a management perspective, this is much tidier. You can revoke a digital pass instantly over the air, without needing to chase down a former employee to get their fob back.

Stop managing plastic

There is a pragmatic side to this as well. Managing physical inventory is boring, expensive, and bad for the planet.

Printing plastic cards involves ribbons, expensive printers that always seem to jam, and a lot of waste. Then you have to physically hand them to people. If you run a coworking space or a large office, the hours spent managing plastic inventory add up to a significant operational drag.

With wallet passes, issuing a credential takes a few clicks. You send a link, the user adds it to their wallet, and they are ready to go. It allows your operations team to spend less time managing admin and more time looking after the people in the building.

It just looks better

While it’s important that things work, it can also be important how they look. There is something inherently dated about a scratched-up plastic badge.

A branded pass in a digital wallet looks professional. It sits alongside a user's bank cards and airline tickets, reinforcing that your business is modern and considers the user experience. It allows you to update branding or details without reprinting thousands of cards.

The new standard

We aren't talking about some distant concept here. This technology is already in the pockets of almost every person who walks through your doors. Using wallet passes is simply aligning your building’s infrastructure with the tools your people are already using.

If you are tired of the card shuffle and want to see how this works in practice, we would love to show you.

How to get started

We'd love to discuss your project - Book a Demo Today

For more information please see our website at doorflow.com

Contact us by email at hello@doorflow.com