Residential building managers need to wear many hats. In addition to dealing with tenant complaints and managing maintenance, you also need to ensure that your building's occupants remain safe. Security methods for residential buildings can vary significantly, from open lobbies to on-site security guards at the front door.

However, many buildings fall somewhere in between these two extremes. A locked front door can help deter intruders, but traditional locks can be inconvenient and also challenging to manage for large buildings with many occupants. Key fob security systems offer an alternative that can both improve security and reduce your management overhead.

Key Fob Systems Explained

If you own a car that was manufactured in the last several decades, then you're already familiar with how fob-based systems work. Many modern vehicles with keyless ignition and entry use fobs with small RFID transmitters to detect when an authorized person is near the door, allowing them to unlock the car or open the trunk with a touch.

Building fob systems work similarly. In most cases, you'll need to install a scanner near points of entry to control the locks on your doors. An authorized building occupant holds their fob near the scanner, allowing the door to unlock and permitting access. Each fob contains some data identifying itself so that only those permitted to enter the building can do so.

The Management Advantages of Key Fob Systems

Managing physical keys for a property comes with numerous pitfalls. If a tenant loses a key, you may need to rekey the lock and issue entirely new keys for other tenants to prevent unauthorized entry. Likewise, physical keys don't provide your building security personnel with any access records, reducing your ability to resolve issues around unauthorized entries.

Key fobs can also simplify tenant move-in and move-out. With physical keys, you need to ensure that you retrieve any keys from occupants who are moving out of the building. While you should still recover and reuse fobs, forgotten fobs pose less of a threat than forgotten keys. Instead of installing a new lock, you can simply disable the lost device's access with no risk.

Likewise, you don't need to have separate keys for access to different parts of your building. Customized access codes for employees can allow your janitorial staff to access maintenance closets, for example, while denying entry to residents. Temporary fobs can also simplify access for contractors or other workers who may be on-site for a short time.

Ultimately, implementing a key fob security system is an excellent way to modernize your building, improve security, and significantly simplify building management tasks. These security systems are worth considering for multi-unit residential structures of any size.