All properties are not the same part 1: Student housing
All properties and all access challenges are not the same. Luckily, iLOQ has a range of smart-access solutions that are designed to maximize security, minimize administration and lifecycle costs and optimize the user experience in all properties. In the first part of our series of blog posts, let’s take a look at the benefits of iLOQ’s smart-access solution for the student-housing sector.
There are several challenges for the people who are responsible for access management in student housing:
- The big rush at the beginning of the school year to ensure new students get quick and efficient access to their properties.
- Students moving in and out constantly throughout the year.
- The buildings, classrooms and facilities they need to get access to frequently changing.
- Keys getting lost, shared with unknown people, stolen or simply not returned when they move out.
The pain points are also clear:
- Security risks for the properties, the assets contained in them and the students themselves.
- High maintenance costs, particularly with mechanical or battery-powered systems.
- Complicated key logistics and administration to keep access rights up to date.
- Challenges keeping track of who has access to where and when.
- Difficulties for students to move around the places where they live and study.
With iLOQ’s digital-key-based solution, all the access rights a student needs to securely and conveniently move around their accommodation, the classrooms and facilities in which they are studying, and shared spaces such as gyms, and cafes, are programmed to just one key. With iLOQ’s innovative, keyless, smart-access solution, all the access rights they need are shared to iLOQ’s app running on their smartphone.
iLOQ’s solutions are unique in that they are battery-free. With the digital-key-based solution, the power needed to recognize the student’s access rights and open the locks comes from the kinetic energy generated by pushing the key into the lock. With the smartphone-based solution, the power needed to recognize the student’s access rights and open the locks comes from the NFC (near field communication) induction of the smartphone when it is held against the lock.
There are a huge number of benefits of iLOQ’s smart-access solutions for all relevant parties – the building owners, the locking system administrators and property managers and the students themselves.
- Access rights are programmed to the digital keys (which can be sent out in good time before the start of the school year) using iLOQ’s cloud-based software platform. Or they can be sent remotely and in real time to iLOQ’s app running on the student’s smartphone when they are ready to move in.
- If the places they need to access change, their access rights can be quickly, easily and remotely updated in real time.
- There are no security risks related to mechanical keys, keycards or fobs that can easily be lost, stolen, copied or shared with unknown people.
- If a digital key is lost or stolen, the student’s access rights can be blocked rendering the key useless if an unauthorized person tries to use it. A new key can be quickly and easily programmed. If a phone is lost or stolen, the student’s access rights can be reloaded to the app on their new device. And, in the meantime, temporary access rights for their locks can be given to one of their housemates to ensure they are never locked out.
- Audit trails make it easy to track and manage who has accessed where and when.
- There are no maintenance costs related to changing batteries.
- iLOQ’s solution is also cable-free and needs no WiFi or internet connection which reduces costs related to the locking infrastructure.
- There is no need to renew the entire locking system or rekey locks if a key is lost or stolen saving a huge amount of time and costs.
- Students have a fast, easy and convenient way to move around the student campus and their accommodation.
- When students move out, their access rights are quickly and easily cancelled avoiding the hassle to get the keys back to keep security levels high.
iLOQ’s smart locks are extremely quick and easy to install in new properties and equally as easy to retrofit in existing properties. There’s no need for special tools, drilling or to make changes to the infrastructure.
Take a look at how housing association Lieven de Key installed iLOQ’s smart-access solution on the doors to 2000 apartments for international students. This helped them move from 12,000 key transfers a year and the physical management of 14,000 keys to a digital and keyless solution with a fully automated check in.
Or how SSH Student Housing used iLOQ’s smart-access solution to simplify how they deal with a high turnover of residents (about 8,000 moves during the year) and provide a secure, flexible and easy-to-use access-management solution for international students who often don’t speak the local language.
So, if you want to be savvy, make life safer and more convenient for your residents, then be smart and choose iLOQ’s smart-access solution.
Watch this space for:
All properties are not the same part 2: Critical infrastructure
