Halifax-based Rimot.io has developed a new device to screen people entering workplaces for COVID-19, and Halifax Partnership and Volta have signed up as early adopters.

Rimot’s core business is a monitoring technology that helps organizations ensure their critical infrastructure in remote locations is working. When the pandemic broke out, the company saw an opportunity to make workplaces safer by screening people for COVID-19 using a touchless thermal camera and automated questionnaires.

The company is now deploying the product called RimotHealth and said in a statement it is working on sales across North America and Europe.

“Our existing customers and partners triggered us to create a sustainable way to screen workers to keep workplaces safe through COVID-19 and beyond,” said Rimot CEO Andrew Boswell. “We fast-tracked RimotHealth to provide contactless screening along with the real-time data and analytics for these business and government organizations to safely and cost-effectively manage in the new normal.”

To support the company, the economic development agency Halifax Partnership and innovation hub Volta are testing a new release of RimotHealth within their workplaces. It’s now being used in the main lobby of Volta, and in the Partnership’s office in the Nova Centre.

The organizations said in a statement that this is the first pilot project of the Halifax Innovation Outpost’s City as a Living Lab initiative, which aims to help startups beta test their products.

“Rimot Technologies has taken the lead in creating a much-needed, innovative solution that will help organizations of all sizes navigate re-opening during this pandemic and establish best practice for allowing external visitors on-site,” said Volta CEO Martha Casey.

Co-Founded by Boswell and CTO James Craig, Rimot addresses the problems that various companies or organizations have in monitoring their private wireless communications systems in remote locations. These systems are susceptible to outages, and repairing them is often costly because they are so far from corporate or government offices.

The company, which raised $1.2 million in equity financing last year, revealed in March it is developing a nautical product called RimotShip, which uses data produced by a ship and artificial intelligence to improve a vessel’s onboard operations. It can be used for a single ship or a fleet.