Moulding the future entails pooling knowledge and turning it into user-friendly products in a spirit of smart management. It was this conviction that brought FSB and Winkhaus to the table and gave rise to the EZK electronic access control system, a jointly developed product innovation.

Owing to the security requirements attaching to the loss of keys or changes in authorisation, electronically organised access control systems are now an established fact in the project fitments market. EZK draws on Winkhaus’s BlueChip technology, which has been further developed with electronic organisation requirements specifically in mind. Part of the remit involved integrating EZK into existing lever handle/rose sets by FSB in as discreet a way as possible. The EZK hardware system accordingly combines core aspects of the two companies’ offerings. Shape has been lent to a completely self-supporting hardware solution by FSB that operates with the Winkhaus BlueChip system and has now been patented.

“Easy is better than complicated”, as Dieter Rams, former head designer at Braun AG, once put it. Account is had of the human need for simplification in that, amongst other things, the electronic identification gear has been squeezed into the handle rose together with a mechatronic module. Key to the system is an electronically controlled coupling element that, once a person seeking passage has been positively identified, ensures direct operation of the lock by non-positive means via the door handle.

There is no tiresome “intermediate coupling”. The EZK system is the only hardware solution sector-wide that delivers classic residential-style rose-and-escutcheon visuals and is suitable for interior doors in steel and timber. At least as compelling as the visuals is the array of variants that can be deployed within the EZK system. Permutations of 31 different door handle designs in either Aluminium, AluGrey®, Stainless Steel, Bronze or Coloured Anodised Aluminium are possible.

Moreover, FSB is the only supplier on the market that also offers a viable solution for glazed doors involving EZK hardware with its complete absence of external cabling. Hence the Brakel firm is once again impressively demonstrating its intention to align its product range root and branch with the requirements of the “project” sector, including as regards fine-detail solutions. It is not only with regard to organisational structures that EZK is nicely placed. The Winkhaus BlueChip cylinder comes into its own as a system constituent for the locking of external points of access as in conventional systems (by inserting and turning a key acting on the deadbolt). It guarantees secure protection – most notably of external points of access – in compliance with DIN 18257 and VDS Security Class B assuming the combined hardware elements have been tested and certificated pursuant to DIN EN 1906. This can be taken as read where any FSB security hardware is concerned. One advantage here is that use can be made of the same identifier and locking concept: FSB’s hardware technology ably complements Winkhaus’s BlueChip system and the two together are equipped for any area of application by dint of a wide range of system components such as card scanners. EZK additionally includes return lever-handle models with fire safety status in accordance with DIN EN 179 and may be used without restriction for emergency exit doors. Due to its being certificated pursuant to DIN 18 273, furthermore, EZK can also be unbureaucratically retrofitted to existing fire safety elements in renovation schemes without jeopardising the approval process.

The clever way EZK combines with FSB’s wide range of products and also the ease with which it is assembled are strong arguments for saying goodbye to the conventional key. Further information on EZK by FSB can be found on the web at www.fsb.de/ezk, in the FSB manual and in a detailed brochure available free of charge from www.fsb.de