Look, managing buildings sucks sometimes. Seriously. Especially when there’s not just ONE door, but, like, a bunch. Front door, back door, side door by the loading bay, that weird basement access, maybe even gates or whatever. Keeping track of who gets into which one and when… ugh, headache central. Plus all the keys! Mountains of keys. They get lost, copied, you gotta re-key stuff if someone leaves? Total drag.
So yeah, what even is the point? Well, this cloud thingy stuff, right? There’s systems. Access control is the fancy term. And one of these systems is called… remotelock? I think. Or Remote Lock? Something like that. Anyway, how do these things work? Mostly it’s about ditching all those physical keys, mostly. Kinda.
First, you slap these electronic locks on your doors. They talk over the internet. Wi-Fi or maybe cellular sometimes? So you’re not physically at every lock to mess with it. You’re sitting on your computer or, like, your phone. That’s the remote bit. So you can see everything from one screen basically.
Managing multiple doors… it’s like putting all the locks in one online group or list or something. You can flip a switch (digitally) and make a new rule for ALL the doors at once. Like banning someone? Yeah, kick their access from everywhere in one shot. No chasing keys back. Way better than tracking down ten different keys Jim used to have.
Schedules! Super important. Maybe the cleaning crew only needs the east wing door unlocked after 6 PM on weekdays? Or the main lobby should auto-lock at 9 PM sharp? With a system like remotelock, you set that timing once online for that specific door, or copy paste it onto the group of similar doors. Don’t have to run around at closing time jiggling locks manually. Big time saver, right there. Also stops people who shouldn’t be coming in during off-hours because the door is just physically locked unless the schedule allows it.
Who came in, which door? Access logs are a big deal for security reports. Trying to figure out who entered the stockroom when something vanished? If the system logs which user credential opened the door and when, you get a pretty decent digital trail. Saves a lot of CCTV rewinding nightmares, scanning hours of footage for anyone coming out of one specific door. Instead, you check the log for that door ID. Boom.
Oh, and mobile credentials! People like using their phones. So instead of cards or fobs, they just wave their phone at the reader. If they lose the phone, you just deactivate their virtual key from the dashboard. Instantly stops their access across all doors they had privileges for. Faster than re-keying physically for sure. Even if they lose just a card, it’s quicker to kill that single credential than change locks on multiple physical… doors? Dors? You know what I mean.
Downside? You need reliable internet connection at each door. Also, power. Battery backups good to have. Initial setup takes some doing, wiring stuff, figuring out the software. Can feel a bit much at first. Plus learning the interface for adding multiple doors to groups. But once it’s running? For multiple entry points, not having to manage separate keys or physically check each lock saves so much hassle. Especially for remote sites. So mobile access is really… um… yep.