Reinventing the door handle

At http://www.redesignme.com/ a challenge is placed to make a new design for a door handle. The are looking for a new form of of the handle itself, but I could not resist to send in a completely new(?) design for the mechanism.

My proposed locking solution is an electronic lock embedded in the door, consisting of a bolt driven by an electromagnet, a rechargeable battery, solar cell, RFID antenna and electronics.

This lock works in combination with a door handle that contains a sensor. This sensor can be a variety of sensor types, like a micro switch, a capacitive sensor or an infra red sensor.

The door handle and lock are connect by wire or remote control.

As a key the lock can use an RFID device. This key could have the form of a chip card or key ring. As an alternative the key could be a remote controller.

This lock and handle assembly has several properties uncommon to normal lock mechanisms:

• The form of the handle can be more freely chosen, as it does not serve as a lever
• It is not necessary to rotate the door handle, touching the handle can open the lock
• It is not necessary to touch the door handle as the sensor can sense the proximity of a hand
• At the push side of the door no handle at all is necessary. In fact not even the sensor has to be in sight, as it could sense through the wood surface of the door. But this would probably confuse users, so at least a push plate should be on the door to indicate the function. 
• The door handle can be placed anywhere on the door, not just at the place where the lock is attached.
• Multiple locks can be combined with one door handle.
• The lock can be operated with a remote control, like a car remote control. 
• The lock can be operated by a remote sensing device like a passive infra red sensor.
• The lock can contain LED indicators that indicate locked or open state and battery state.
• The user can keep the RFID key in his pocket as the RFID can read the tag from a distance.