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Why I decided to unlock the potential of key-less door tech

Paul Cleaver, the MD of London property management firm Urang explains why he's rolling out keyless door tech across his portfolio of 300 properties.

Paul Cleaver

keyless locks

During the twenty years after I formed Urang, tech has come on at an alarmingly fast rate. Remember, it’s still only just over 10 years since the iPhone came out, and 20 years ago internet access at home was far less common.

Now there is a whole host of tools being created, and an increasing number of PropTech startups developing products we’d never have dreamed of twenty, or even five years ago.

Recently, we were introduced to Klevio, a ‘smart home’ company with a piece of keyless lock technology that saves one of the biggest burdens on our time as property managers – keys.

This smart intercom is connected to the pre-existing lock, and the communal door in the case of blocks of flats, and enables residents or visitors with a digital key to access the property via a smartphone app.

Anyone who has ever worked in property management, or even had their own small portfolio, will understand the chaos of key management.

When you manage over 300 buildings like we do, ‘key logistics’ takes a lot of time and money.

From physically storing them, tracking them, getting them to people or making sure they come back, in-person meet-and-greets – the hours and money associated builds up fast.

Now, we can provide access at the swipe of a button or by issuing a key to someone’s phone. We can also track when they entered the building. We can revoke the key so it can’t be used again. In the case of emergencies this makes an incredible difference to our residents or to the contractors that need to gain entry.

If a resident loses a key or someone needs to access a property very quickly to fix something, we can provide access remotely.

We have Klevio installed in several buildings, and now contractors that need to visit maybe one or two buildings get irritated if one building doesn’t have the tech.

This is just one solution that we’ve looked at, and are planning to roll it out more widely.

I wish I had taken the time to look sooner at what else technology can enable us to do that has a direct impact on all involved. Finding the time to start the hunt and do the research is a big barrier for our industry, but if you can find a way to investigate, do it.

Read more about keyless door locks.

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