These awesome automatic doors from Japan have a difference – which will be immediately apparent if you watch the video. They conform to the shape of your body, opening only as far as they need to for you to get through comfortably.

It sounds a bit faddish and useless at first hearing, but you soon realise that the implications on energy efficiency are actually quite great. Automatic doors have become something of a necessity in modern shops, as unfortunately people need to be able to get out with full hands, they often can’t use a door handle. A door handle would obviously be the most energy efficient (and beautiful!) option of all – it uses human energy rather than carbon-vomiting coal powered energy to open the door, and combats the obesity problem in its own small way with every time it must be opened.

So, automatic doors are here to stay – convenience and obesity win – but the payoff need not be a waste of energy in lost heat or cool every time the door opens and stays open for those few seconds longer than it needs to. This automatic door also minimises the entry of dust and pollens, for those sneezy people.

The door works by the action of many infrared sensors on each door panel. They sense an obstruction and open, much like an elevator door does. The concept sounds quite simple, but technology is actually said to be in its infancy. It must have all seemed a bit too Looney Tunes to have a person-shaped hole in the door for a fair chunk of the day! It will be a great boon to energy efficiency when this design actually does start to take over in new buildings from the traditional design. No doubt as miniaturisation and optical fibres advance also, this will be able to be incorporated into glass doors without too much wiring showing!

A final though, that this door might help fight obesity better than a traditional door does, after all … I can imagine hundreds of women the world over cursing these doors, saying ”My hips are not that big! You shrink those panels right now!”

          

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