Standalone Keypad, Smart Lock, or Networked Access Control?
, by United Doors and Locks, 5 min reading time
Four tiers of access control, an order of magnitude apart in cost. The deciding factor is rarely the door: it is how often your people change.
The question is usually asked as a product question — which lock should we buy — when it is really a question about how a building is run. Four tiers of access control exist, they differ by an order of magnitude in cost, and the deciding factor is almost never the door. It is how often the people change.
Tier 1: mechanical pushbutton
No power, no battery, no wiring. A code turns the lever.
A mechanical pushbutton lock is a lock with a combination instead of a key. There is nothing to charge, nothing to fail in a power cut, and nothing to program. Codes are changed mechanically, on the door, in a few minutes.
What you give up is any record of who went where and any ability to give one person their own code. Everybody shares one combination, and when somebody leaves you change it for everyone.
It suits low-traffic doors with a stable, small group of users: a plant room, a store cupboard, a staff-only rear door at a site with five employees. The Codelocks CL510 and CL515 are heavy duty examples, and the CL250 adds a key override for the case where the code is forgotten. The CL610 offers quick code change without dismantling the lock.
Tier 2: standalone electronic keypad
Battery powered. Multiple user codes, programmed at the door.
The step up from mechanical is individual codes. Each user gets their own, so a single person can be removed without disturbing anybody else — the change that matters most in practice. Better units keep an audit trail of the last few hundred events and support time-limited codes.
Still no wiring, so installation is a lockset swap. You are now maintaining batteries, and you are programming each door individually by standing in front of it.
The LE2000 Series and 5000 Series are commercial keypad locks in this tier. The Codelocks CL4210 adds a Schlage C key override, and the Alarm Lock PDK3000 Trilogy combines a keypad with a proximity reader for sites that want to move to cards without wiring.
This tier is the right answer for a surprising number of buildings: a handful of doors, moderate turnover, and nobody who wants to run a server.
Tier 3: standalone smart lock
Battery powered, configured from a phone or a cloud portal.
Mechanically the same as tier 2. The difference is administration: you issue, schedule, and revoke codes from an app instead of walking to the door, and you can send a time-limited code to a contractor who is standing outside a building you are not at.
That single capability — remote credential issue — is what people are buying, and for property managers with dispersed sites it is transformative. Each lock is still an island, so there is no live central view and no interlock with the alarm or fire system.
The Codelocks CL5510 is a Grade 2 smart lock in this tier, and the CL5510 with audit trail adds the event log. The 5500 Series is a heavy duty smart keypad equivalent.
Tier 4: networked access control
Wired or wirelessly networked to a central system.
Credentials live centrally, not in the lock. Revoke a card and it stops working at every door immediately. You get a live view of the estate, real-time alarms on forced or held-open doors, integration with the fire alarm for door release, and a genuine audit trail across the whole building.
The cost is a different order of magnitude, because it is a system rather than a purchase: readers, controllers, power supplies, cabling or a wireless gateway, software, and commissioning. Networked hardware such as the Schlage CO-200 with proximity reader and keypad or the CO-200 exit device trim sits at the door end of that system.
It is the right answer when instant revocation across many doors is a real requirement: schools, healthcare, multi-tenant buildings, anywhere with regulated areas.
Choosing by turnover, not by door
| Situation | Tier |
|---|---|
| 1–3 doors, stable staff, no audit needed | Mechanical pushbutton |
| Up to about 10 doors, moderate turnover | Standalone keypad |
| Dispersed sites, contractors, remote admin | Standalone smart |
| Many doors, high turnover, instant revocation | Networked |
| Regulated areas, alarm integration required | Networked |
The trap in both directions is real. Buying networked control for four doors and eight staff spends money on capability nobody uses. Fitting standalone keypads across sixty doors in a building with monthly turnover creates a permanent administrative job that costs more each year than the system would have.
Three things people forget
Egress does not change. Whatever is on the outside, the inside must release the latch in one motion without a credential. Electronic access controls entry, never exit.
Fire-rated doors need listed hardware. Electrified hardware on a rated assembly must be listed for it, and the installation must follow the listing. Fitting an unlisted electronic lock to a labelled door voids the rating.
Batteries are a maintenance programme. Standalone locks fail closed when the battery dies, and the key override you did not specify is the difference between a call-out and a drilled lock. Specify key override on anything that matters, and replace batteries on a schedule rather than on failure.
Before you decide
Count the doors, estimate how many people join and leave in a year, and decide whether you need to prove who opened a door after the fact. Those three answers pick the tier. Send them to us with the door list and we will price the tier that fits rather than the one with the longest feature list.