LIGHTGUARD Announces Development Of COVID-19 Touchless Pedestrian Push Button For Public Safety At Crosswalks

COVID-19 driven touchless crosswalk push button designed to activate pedestrian walk time via a hand-wave offers cities a way to reduce the spread of viruses

Santa Rosa, CA /PRNewswire/ - San Francisco North Bay Area crosswalk safety and traffic calming device tech leader LightGuard Systems® (LIGHTGUARD) is excited to announce the development of their latest product line to help cities, municipalities, and state health officials fight COVID-19 and the spread of most viruses capable of being contagious on public crosswalk push buttons for minutes or days.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed many things — to the extent that simply pushing a button has become a personal safety hazard. SmartSense^™ helps cities who are trying to balance public safety with pandemic safety by providing pedestrians the ability to activate crosswalks without using their bare finger. This series of touchless, hands-free, hand-sensing devices will replace and/or upgrade existing PED-buttons, and allow the public the option to wave a hand in front of the hand sensing button — activating the crosswalk request at the controller, instead of pushing a button to cross.

With an initial launch of Q3 2020, SmartSense^™ will be compatible with LIGHTGUARD's complete line of lighted crosswalks and traffic safety equipment, including its Smart Crosswalk^™ in-roadway warning lights, automatic (touchless) pedestrian detection bollard, solar wireless LED border-enhanced warning signs, and RRFB systems. SmartSense^™ will operate at both controlled and uncontrolled intersections, and mid-block crosswalks where the company's lighted crosswalks are commonly used.

The first SmartSense^™ to be released is a supplemental push button sign kit with an embedded sensor that is compatible with LIGHTGUARD's LGS-PBA manual push button mechanism, and most other manufacturer stations. The sign kit can be installed at new and existing manual push button stations, with the manual push button retaining its ability to send a call signal back to the controller to initiate a lighted crosswalk, PED countdown timer, or other output signal. The second SmartSense^™ is a touchless crosswalk activation switch that completely replaces an existing manual push button (pictured).

Key SmartSense^™ product line features include:

• Activation proximity range: 5 inches
• No contact needed to activate
• Replaces existing PED-button and/or PED-placards/signs
• Simple electrical connections
• Nominal 12 VDC operation; optional 110 VAC operation
• Retrofittable into compatible push button stations
• IR technology

www.lightguardsystems.com