Lockers for Les Mills

Les Mills is New Zealand’s leading gym chain, and it owes its popularity in part to its embrace of new technology. It appeals to a wide range of gym goers with its world-leading blend of music and fitness classes, design-led floor spaces, and constantly evolving industry innovations.
After many years in a Dunedin location, Les Mills undertook a significant project - creating a new fitness space in the Meridian Mall basement. A key aspect of this endeavour was the introduction of a new locker system, a departure from traditional padlocks, designed to enhance user experience and convenience.
Elocker was tasked with providing a solution that would move away from padlocks, interact with the Les Mills app (or tag barcodes), and provide an automated system to manage how long people could use the lockers.

Elocker adapted our End of Journey Locker software to accommodate the variables Les Mills needed for their members. We developed a specific Les Mills branded platform to operate on kiosks inside the changing rooms. As members enter the rooms, they scan their phone or tag and our system automatically verifies the membership and opens an available locker. That locker was then available to them for a set period, and they could open and close it as many times as required. 

Elocker created a solution that reflects the premium quality Les Mills offers its members. The cabinets look sleek and robust (in a challenging environment), and they include innovations like lining them with Autex Cube to reduce closing sounds. 

However, there have been issues and learnings. Given our restricted space, we used 7" touchscreens instead of 10", significantly impacting accessibility. We over-specified the security by needing repeated DD/MM/YYYY entries, making the screen hard to read. The extra time some members needed to operate the touchscreens, created queues and frustrations, as did the inability to choose their locker. Habits are hard to change after 20-plus years of accessing the same door each day.

Elocker has worked hard with Les Mills' feedback, and we now have a system that is intuitive to use, quicker to access, and enjoyed by most members. For those members who want to return to using padlocks, we've adapted our cabinet design to replace the electronic doors with external padlock clasps.