During an AAOA-sponsored webinar, IoT in Real Estate, the 92 property owners who attended asked us a lot of questions about smart access control technology. We had answers. Now, we’re sharing them with you.
How do I figure out what my access control solution looks like?
Since every property (and budget) is unique your access control technology provider should have a variety of products that work together. This is important. Here’s why. You should get the smart access control solution you need right now. But your right-now solution must be able to scale — to accommodate every part of your property and its changing requirements.
LiftMaster’s Total Access Control Solution: Cloud software, Hardware, Smartphone App
We shared with the webinar audience how the components of our smart access control technology can be used to meet differing needs. Think of smart access control as a box of LEGOs®. You use the interlocking pieces to build something cool. In this instance, the cool thing is the security of your property, the safety of your residents, and the convenience of automated access control management.
The LiftMaster myQ Site Walk Informs Your Decision About Smart Access Control Technology
Here’s what happens after you’ve decided that you need to introduce or update smart access control at your property. It’s the site walk. No, it’s nothing like a perp walk. Here’s how it works. A business development team member in your area will walk the property with you, often accompanied by the installation expert who will service the hardware and cloud software after installing it. During the site walk, your LiftMaster rep and/or the installer will check for environmental barriers to the successful operation of your access control solution, looking for things like:
- A clear line of sight between the Radio Frequency Identification System (RFID) in the video intercom hardware and the radio frequency tags that send information to the cloud software via Wi-Fi.
- The proximity to high-tension power lines can cause interference with Wi-Fi and smartphone reception.
- The distance between a gate (if used) and the access control hardware station.
How Dependable is Smart Access Control Technology?
This question was also asked by a property owner who attended the AAOA webinar. And it’s a question we love to answer. Why? Because LiftMaster products powered by myQ software are put through an insanely rigorous testing process.
The intrepid Field Operations Team, led by Manager Rudy Smith, jokingly refers to themselves as the A-Team 
after the 1980s TV series about former members of a fictitious Special Forces unit. Their product testing lab looks like a place where clandestine activities could take place. Glenn Fischer, the Senior Analyst on the team, and his colleague Ramon Bracamonte, are enthusiastic about pushing our products to the breaking point — so they don’t break for our customers. The field services team enjoys their work, beating up our products, punching and pounding the hardware, and stress-testing the myQ Community software repeatedly. They even subject our smart video intercom systems to extreme weather conditions, from the punishing heat of high summer to the worst winter storms.
Edge Testing Smart Access Control Technology Takes Time but Our Customers Are Worth It
Our built-to-last products are also subjected to rigorous edge case testing. This is different from Quality Assurance (QA) testing which ensures that a product or an application performs as planned. Edge case testing attempts to find out what happens when a product is used to perform functions it wasn’t designed for. In other words, what happens when humans use the product to do things outside the expected path?
Edge testing takes time. And it takes creative thinking to visualize how a product may perform in a situation when it’s used in completely unintended ways. But edge, or fringe testing, helps us prevent problems before they occur, and it informs how we design and build quality products.
What Happens if My Smart Access Control Technology Breaks?
While we do everything humanly possible to prevent equipment failure, it does happen. Here’s what our Field Services team does about it.
It’s devilishly difficult to diagnose a product problem, especially if it’s intermittent. But just like CSI-style forensic experts that’s what our Field Services team does. They start with an exhaustive analysis of the situation including the precise physical location of the product, then they run diagnostics of its parts and repeatedly try to reproduce the error.
During the height of the Covid pandemic when site visits were restricted, the team added Google maps and real-time 360-degree smartphone videos shared by someone at the location to remotely diagnose and solve the problems that don’t have easy answers. MacGyver has nothing over these guys.
We have processes and procedures, checklists, and redundant tests that help us produce quality products. But if a problem arises, our in-house team of engineers will diagnose it and resolve it — or die trying. That’s because we understand that our success depends entirely on making sure that you succeed with LiftMaster smart access control products.
Look for Part 3 of the Property Owners FAQ: What You Need to Know After Buying Smart Access Control Technology
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