San Diego State University’s (SDSU) Associated Students has just celebrated eleven years of using 12 hand geometry readers. The tech provides easy access into the six entrances at the Aztec Recreation Center plus the Aztec Center bowling and games facility and the racquetball court inside the Center as well as the four entrances to the Aztec Aquaplex.

The Associated Students of San Diego State University (AS-SDSU) is an independent student-directed corporation that provides a wide range of services and programs for SDSU student, faculty, staff, alumni and the general public. 

The Aztec Recreation Center (ARC) is made up of four multi-purpose gyms, cardio room, weight training room, fitness room, 30 foot climbing wall, bowling alleys, racquetball courts, personal training, massage therapy and offers intramural sports, sport clubs and recreational classes. The Aztec Aquaplex includes a 50-meter lap pool, recreation pool, hydrotherapy spa and aquatic equipment. Various activities, including water aerobics, are held there. Both can only be accessed by members. Approximately 85 percent of the members are students. The rest are made up of faculty, staff and the community.

“The HandKey readers minimize people’s ability to transfer ID’s for admittance into our Center,” said Vicki Greene, member services coordinator for the Associated Students of SDSU. “ID switching is very big in the fitness club industry. The hand readers also allow us to provide better service. No longer do our members have to remember to bring an ID card. That’s the beauty of them. This also means we don’t need to have an employee out front checking cards.

“In addition,” Greene stated, “we feel that hand geometry is the least invasive of the biometric technologies and seems simple compared to the others. We average 4,000 entries per day and have 16,000 active enrollees.”

Instead of verifying a card or code, the Associated Students’ HandKey readers verify the person who is at the entrance. It looks at the three-dimensional size and shape of a member’s hand. The result of ninety hand measurements, including lengths, widths, thickness and surface areas, is converted into a nine-byte mathematical representation of the hand, which is stored as a template for later use and verification. 

To enter the AS-SDSU facilities, a student simply enters her unique ID number on the HandKey’s keypad and presents her hand to gain entry. Verification takes only a second.

The HandKey readers are networked using Schlage HandNet Lite, a free biometric template administration software package for distributing the hand geometry templates across the network, allowing a member to enter any of the approved entrances. 

“We’re sold on the hand geometry readers for this type of application,” Greene affirms. “We’ve recommended them to our sister California State University Associated Students organizations. They’re already in use on the San Bernardino and Fullerton campuses while Chico is now installing them this summer.”