Recognised before the hand reaches the door.

What this one is good at

• Two cameras, not one

  A 1MP colour camera for the picture and a 1MP infrared camera for whether it is a living face. A printed photograph, a phone screen and a video all fail against the pair, which is the whole reason the second camera is there.

• ≤0.2s, 99.70% accurate

  The manufacturer's figures, on their test set. What it means at a staff door is that nobody stops walking. Recognition happens across the approach rather than at a halt.

• Works in bad light

  Wide dynamic range handles strong front light, backlight and dark. In the dark a soft white light comes up on its own when it sees a face, controlled by ambient level.

• Fingerprint for the exceptions

  The reader is tilted toward the hand and stores up to 10,000 fingerprints. It provides a second biometric option whenever face recognition is not the preferred method.

• A photo at every check-in and check-out

  Kept with the punch and shown in Attendance.

• Keeps running through a cut

  An optional backup battery carries it through a power outage, so the punches either side of the cut are still one shift when the lights come back.

• Wall or desk

  Wall-mounted over a wire raceway, or stood on the fold-out desk stand. Same unit, and the choice is usually made by where the door is rather than by preference.