Vimar offers touch-free temperature control with Eikon Tactil

The senses have taken quite a knock during the pandemic; taste and smell primarily, of course, an absence of which has been the surest sign the virus is in attendance. But our relationship with touch has become more complex in the process, too. While furniture designers are now feverishly feeding a world starved of hugs with squeezable, stroke-able texture, technology is facing a world that, forced for 18 months to abstain from touching communal surfaces wherever possible, has developed new hard-to-deactivate reflexes to deal safely with shared doors and digital interfaces.

Anti-microbial surface treatments are stepping up to provide relief when it comes to handling doors, but what of all those control panels we face daily? Italian specialist in home technology, Vimar, is working on solutions, most recently with its touch-free temperature control for interior environments. Its thermostat Eikon Tactil, originally launched in 2015, has recently gained another dimension – an innovation that eschews the need for contact between digits and its plate glass interface.

Intended for use in both the home and hospitality environments, the intuitive system integrates a new 3D gesture function that allows the user to control the thermostat simply by signing to the device remotely with gestures. You can, as the name suggests, enjoy the feel of it if you want to, but this newest iteration of the appliance is designed to make the control of it by touch unnecessary.

When the panel is approached, the LEDs and display awaken and a brightness sensor matches the light intensity to the surroundings. This means that in a darkened bedroom, you are not blasted out of sleep by a sudden surge of light. Then gestures at a distance of up to 10 cm can instruct the device to adjust the temperature. Additionally, an app and voice assistant also provide touch-free control.

The interface would be less noteworthy, however, if it didn’t also please the eye, a sense that remains thankfully unscathed under the shadow cast by the pandemic. Made of plate glass, in black or white diamond finishes with RGB LED matrix display, it sits flat against the wall, interrupting the lines of a room minimally and doing its best to blend invisibly into its surroundings.

The combination of architect-friendly minimalism and refinement in its design and innovative functionality have earned it a prestigious Red Dot award – not a first for the company but an award they are nevertheless rightfully proud of. ‘Straight-forward, elegantly designed and featuring several control options’ was the assessment of Peter Zec, founder and managing director of Red Dot, and certainly its intuitive comprehensibility, flexibility and style seemed to have charmed the jury.

Able to adapt to parallel smart home functions such as the control of lights and curtains, it is easy to imagine Eikon Tactil sliding particularly well into hospitality settings. It comes with a customisable function key, with fan coil unit control key or with key for Hotel functions to signal the status of the room and is available with both By-me Plus technology and KNX protocol, to integrate it into a building’s automation systems.

Founded in 1945 in the aftermath of the second world war in Marostica, Vimar’s original drive was to join the effort to rebuild Italy, creating electrical products for residential use – think lamp holders and plugs, wall sockets and switches. Now, in the aftermath of another world-changing event, it is delivering some of the most sophisticated solutions to home appliances globally, leading the charge towards a hygienic and hands-free world of automated homes.

© Architonic