A property manager calls and says they want “keycards on the doors.” That’s the starting point, not the answer. Before anyone installs hardware, you need to answer three questions: what credential type fits how your building operates, what locking hardware is appropriate for each door, and what happens to those doors when the power goes out or the fire alarm activates.
At Pro Locksmith LLC, we design and install access control systems for small commercial buildings across Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood, Pembroke Pines, and Plantation. This article covers the decisions that actually matter, not the marketing brochures, but the trade-offs a property manager needs to understand before signing off on a system.
Credential Types: Keypad, Fob, or Mobile
Keypads are the simplest option. Users enter a PIN code on a wall-mounted pad to unlock the door. No physical credentials to issue, lose, or recover. Inexpensive to install on a single door. Best for small teams, back offices, mechanical rooms, or as a backup method alongside another credential type.
The problem: codes get shared. If the code is on a sticky note under the receptionist’s monitor, you’ve lost your audit trail. Modern keypads support unique PINs per user and time-based access windows, but enforcement requires discipline.
Key fobs are the most common credential type in commercial buildings. Each user carries a small fob with an embedded RFID chip. They present it to a reader, the reader checks the credential against the controller’s database, and the door unlocks. Fobs can be revoked instantly from the admin software without changing any locks. Replacement cost is typically from $3 per fob depending on the technology tier.
The security of a fob system depends entirely on the credential technology. Legacy 125 kHz proximity fobs can be cloned with cheap devices available online. Modern encrypted credentials, HID iCLASS SEOS, MIFARE DESFire, use cryptographic authentication that makes cloning impractical. If you’re installing fobs today, use encrypted credentials. If you’re inheriting an old system with 125 kHz Prox fobs, plan to upgrade it.
Mobile credentials let users unlock doors with their smartphones via Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) or NFC. No physical token to lose or replace. Credentials can be issued and revoked over the air through a cloud-based admin portal. Onboarding a new employee takes minutes, no one has to physically hand them a fob.
The trade-off: phone dependency. A dead battery or a forgotten phone means no access. Most systems support a backup credential (a keypad PIN or a physical fob for emergencies). And some organizations don’t want employees using personal phones for building access.
For most small commercial buildings in Fort Lauderdale, offices with 5 to 50 employees, medical suites, retail back doors, fobs are still the sweet spot. They’re reliable, the technology is mature, and users don’t need to think about phone batteries. Mobile credentials make sense if you have multiple buildings, frequent contractor access, or a cloud-based system already in place.
Locking Hardware: Maglock vs. Electric Strike
This is the decision that determines what happens when the power goes out. Getting it wrong is a life safety issue.
Electromagnetic locks (maglocks) use an electromagnet bonded to a steel armature plate. When powered, the magnet holds the door closed with 600 to 1,500 pounds of force. When power is cut, the magnet releases and the door opens freely. Maglocks are always fail-safe, power off means door unlocked.
Because maglocks hold the door by magnetic force alone, they must have a secondary means of egress. NFPA 101 requires either a motion sensor (request-to-exit, or REX) that detects an approaching occupant and releases the lock, or a manual push button that interrupts power to the lock.
Maglocks must also release on fire alarm activation. When the building fire alarm triggers, power to the maglock is cut, and the door opens. This integration is not optional, it’s required by NFPA 101 and the Florida Fire Prevention Code.
Electric strikes replace the strike plate in the door frame. When powered, the strike’s keeper either releases the latch (fail-safe) or stays locked (fail-secure). The door itself still has mechanical hardware, a lever, a panic bar, or a mortise lock, so free egress is always available by turning the lever or pushing the bar, regardless of the strike’s power state.
This is the critical difference: with an electric strike, the mechanical exit hardware always provides egress. With a maglock, the magnetic bond physically holds the door shut, so you need the REX sensor and the fire alarm release to comply with egress code.
Fail-safe vs. fail-secure:
- Fail-safe = unlocked on power loss. Used on egress paths, stairwell doors, and any door that occupants must be able to exit through during a power failure or fire. Maglocks are always fail-safe. Electric strikes can be ordered fail-safe.
- Fail-secure = locked on power loss. Used on perimeter doors, server rooms, and high-security areas where you don’t want a power cut to give someone access. Electric strikes can be ordered fail-secure.
The rule: any door on the path of egress must be fail-safe. No exceptions. If occupants need to pass through that door to get out of the building, it has to unlock when the power dies or the fire alarm sounds.
Fire-rated doors have an additional requirement: electric strikes used on fire doors must be fail-secure and must be listed for fire door use. This sounds contradictory, but it works because the mechanical exit hardware on a fire door always allows free egress, the strike just controls whether the latch can be pulled back from the outside.
Fire Alarm Integration: Not Optional
If your access control system includes maglocks, the fire alarm system must release them on activation. This means:
- The fire alarm panel sends a signal to the access control system (or directly to the lock power supply) when an alarm is triggered
- Power to all maglocks on egress paths is cut immediately
- All doors on the egress route open freely
- The system must also release on sprinkler activation, if the building has a sprinkler system
This integration requires coordination between the access control installer and the fire alarm contractor. If you’re retrofitting access control into a building with an existing fire alarm, we verify compatibility before installing anything. If the fire alarm panel can’t signal the access control system, maglocks are off the table for egress doors, we use electric strikes with fail-safe configuration instead.
What We Do, and What We Don’t
Pro Locksmith LLC is platform-agnostic. We don’t partner with or resell any access control platform. We spec whatever fits the building, its existing infrastructure, and the customer’s budget, not what we’re contracted to sell. That’s an advantage for property managers: you get hardware chosen for your building, not for a vendor relationship.
Our scope is the hardware side of the opening: electric strikes, maglocks, REX sensors, door position switches, power supplies, wiring, door prep, and integration with existing door hardware and the fire alarm system.
Not our scope: controller software, cloud platform administration, credential management, and ongoing system administration. If a customer needs a managed cloud platform, that’s a separate vendor, we handle the physical installation and make sure it works with their doors.
What We Actually Install
For most small commercial buildings in Fort Lauderdale, a medical office with a front door and a back door, a restaurant with an office door, a retail space with a stockroom, the typical system looks like this:
- Front door: Electric strike (fail-safe) integrated with a fob reader and keypad backup. The existing mechanical lock stays for free egress. Fire alarm releases the strike on activation. See our article on panic bars and exit devices for fire code requirements on egress doors.
- Back door / stockroom: Electric strike or maglock with REX sensor and push button. Maglock only if the door has no mechanical hardware that can provide egress.
- Controller: Wall-mounted panel that processes credentials and manages door schedules. We handle the wiring, power supply, and door hardware integration; the customer or their IT vendor manages the software side.
- Admin software: Add users, assign access levels (front door only vs. all doors), set time schedules (access during business hours only), pull audit logs. This is managed by the customer or their access control platform vendor.
Don’t Bolt On Access Control After the Fact
The most common mistake property managers make: buying access control hardware online and calling us to install it. The hardware may be fine, but the system design, which doors, which lock type, which credential, fire alarm integration, has to be figured out before anything gets mounted. Retrofitting a poorly planned system costs more than doing it right the first time.
Call us at (954) 406-8266. We’ll walk your property, identify which doors need access control, and design a system that fits how your building operates and meets Florida fire code. Licensed, insured, employees not subcontractors. COI provided for commercial work.
Pro Locksmith LLC, commercial door hardware and access control in Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood, Pembroke Pines, and Plantation.
Door Position Switches: Knowing Whether the Door Actually Closed
A reader and a lock tell the system who was allowed in. They do not tell the system whether the door is shut. That is the job of the door position switch, a small magnetic contact recessed into the top of the frame with a matching magnet in the door. When the door closes, the contact reads closed. When it opens, the contact reports that too.
Without a position switch, the software cannot tell the difference between a door that opened after a valid fob read and a door that was forced or propped. With one, the system can flag three events that matter to a property manager:
- Door forced open: the switch shows the door opened with no valid credential and no request-to-exit signal.
- Door held open: the door was opened legitimately but stayed open longer than the time you set, usually because someone wedged it for a delivery.
- Door left ajar at close of business: the schedule says the door should be secured, but the switch says it never latched.
On a retail back door or a warehouse side door, the held-open alert is often the most useful feature in the whole system. Doors get propped for smoke breaks, for vendors, and for air circulation on hot days. A local sounder at the door that chirps after the door has been open too long fixes most of that behavior without anyone having to check a report.
Power Supplies and Battery Backup
Every electrified lock needs a power supply sized for the hardware on that door, plus the reader, plus any sounder or REX sensor. The supply usually lives in a locked enclosure near the controller, and it should include standby batteries. What the batteries do depends on the lock type.
On a fail-secure electric strike, the batteries keep the reader working so employees can still get in during a utility outage. On a maglock, the batteries keep the door secured during the outage, which is only acceptable because the fire alarm release and REX still cut power when needed. Either way, backup batteries are consumables. They lose capacity with age and heat, and many small buildings discover this only when the power drops and the system dies an hour later. Put a battery check on the same calendar as your fire alarm inspection.
Wire runs matter too. Low-voltage locks lose voltage over long, thin cable, and a maglock that is receiving less voltage than it is rated for holds with less force. When we plan a system, we size the cable for the distance between the supply and the door, not just for what happens to be in the truck.
South Florida Building Conditions That Affect the Install
Many small commercial buildings in Broward County are concrete block with poured tie beams, and plenty of them have storefront aluminum doors with narrow stiles. Both details shape the job.
Getting wire to the door
In block construction, you cannot fish cable through a wall the way you can in a wood or metal stud partition. Wire usually has to come down from the ceiling space inside a surface raceway, or through the frame itself if the frame is hollow and accessible. For the leaf of the door, the cable crosses the hinge side through an electric power transfer or an armored door loop. We plan that route during the walkthrough, because it decides how clean the finished opening looks.
Narrow stile aluminum doors
Storefront doors have very little room for hardware. A standard electric strike often will not fit the thin aluminum frame, and cutting the frame weakens it. On these openings, the better choices are usually a strike made for the storefront latch that is already in the door, an electrified narrow stile exit device, or a maglock with the required egress components. The right answer depends on the existing lock and whether the door is on a required exit path.
Heat, humidity, and wind-driven rain
Readers mounted on an exposed exterior wall take direct sun and sideways rain during storms. Use readers rated for outdoor mounting, seal the back box and cable entry, and mount the reader where a gutter or awning does not dump water across it. Salt air near the coast, in areas like Fort Lauderdale beach, Dania Beach, and Hollywood, corrodes exposed fasteners and terminals faster, so stainless hardware and sealed connections are worth specifying from the start.
Request-to-Exit Devices on Electric Strike Doors
The article above explains why maglocks need a REX sensor. Electric strike doors often benefit from one too, even though the mechanical hardware already provides egress. The reason is the door position switch. When an employee pushes the bar or turns the lever to leave, the door opens with no credential read. Without a REX signal, the system logs that as a forced door. A motion sensor above the door, or a switch built into the exit device, tells the controller the opening was a legitimate exit and keeps the alarm log clean enough that people actually read it.
Access Levels and Schedules That Match Real Operations
Most of the setup work in the software is deciding who gets through which door and when. A few patterns work well for small buildings:
- Build access levels around roles, not individuals. “Front office,” “warehouse,” “management,” and “cleaning crew” are easier to maintain than a custom set of doors for every person.
- Give the cleaning contractor its own level with a time window. If the crew arrives after hours, their credentials should work only during that window and only on the doors they need.
- Use a first-person-in rule on the main entrance if your system supports it. The door stays locked on its unlock schedule until a manager actually arrives, so a holiday or late opening does not leave the front door unlocked for hours with nobody inside.
- Keep one mechanical key override on each electrified door and control who holds it. Access control does not replace keys entirely. It reduces how many are in circulation.
Turnover: Where Access Control Pays for Itself
The biggest practical difference between keys and credentials shows up when someone leaves. With keys, a departing employee who does not return a key means rekeying, cutting new keys, and redistributing them. With credentials, the admin deletes one user and the door stops accepting that fob.
That benefit disappears if nobody deletes the user. Tie credential removal to your offboarding checklist the same way you tie it to returning a laptop. Once a quarter, run a list of active credentials and compare it to your current staff and vendors. You will usually find a former employee, a temporary worker, or a contractor who finished months ago.
Multi-Tenant Buildings
In a small office building or a strip of units with shared common doors, the property manager usually controls the building entrances and each tenant controls its own suite. There are two common ways to handle this:
- One system for the building, with each tenant given its own access level for the lobby plus its suite door. Simple, but the property manager ends up doing the admin work for every tenant change.
- A building system for the shared doors, and separate tenant-owned systems or mechanical locks on suite doors. More independent, but tenants have to carry two credentials or a combination of credential and key.
Settle this before hardware goes on the doors. It affects the credential format, the number of controllers, and who is responsible when a tenant loses a fob at 9 p.m.
Fire-Rated Openings: Check the Label First
Stairwell doors, corridor doors, and some doors between tenant spaces carry fire ratings. The label is usually on the hinge edge of the door and on the frame. Before any hardware is added to a labeled opening, the new components have to be listed for use on fire doors, and field modifications to the door or frame are limited. Drilling a rated door for a cable route or cutting the frame for a strike without the proper listed components can void the rating. We check labels during the walkthrough so there are no surprises after the fact.
Preparing for the Walkthrough
You will get a better design and a more accurate quote if you have a few things ready when we visit:
- A floor plan, even a rough sketch, showing which doors you want controlled and which are exits.
- The name of your fire alarm company and whether your panel has spare relay outputs.
- A headcount now and a realistic headcount in a few years, so the controller has room to grow.
- Your hours, your after-hours users, and any vendors who need recurring access.
- Any existing access equipment, including old readers or maglocks left by a previous tenant, so we can tell you what can be reused.
We serve commercial buildings across Broward County, from Pompano Beach and Coral Springs down through Hollywood and Hallandale Beach, and north into Boca Raton and Delray Beach, with commercial work extending up to West Palm Beach. If you are planning access control for a property in that area, the walkthrough is where good systems start.