You all were supposed to make me feel all warm and fuzzy about wireless door locks, not confirm my biggest fears! j/k
Seriously, though, thanks all for sharing your experience... very helpful indeed. I know wireless locks are going to happen here, but perhaps I can convince planners to compromise with an 802.15-based system. Ron: I feel your pain regarding architects / construction companies... Sounds like we live in a fairly similar world in that regard. Derek Johnson | Data Communications Coordinator FORT HAYS STATE UNIVERSITY 415 Lyman Dr. TH 101, Hays, KS 67601 (785) 628 - 5688 | djohn...@fhsu.edu From: "Parker, Ron" <ron.par...@brazosport.edu> To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Date: 07/02/2015 03:23 PM Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Wireless Door Locks Sent by: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv <WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU> I would strongly advise against these locks unless you fully understand their limitations and are OK with them. We did some construction projects where hard-wired locks were ?value engineered? out of the project to save money. We ended up with a bunch of wireless Assa Abloy locks that don?t work right and that we can?t get support on. They have been nothing but headaches for us. Most of them don?t work anymore and we can?t find anyone in the Houston area that can support them. They are useless if you want to do a building lockdown for a security issue. They can?t be locked or unlocked remotely because they aren?t in constant contact with the access control system. Ours poll the access control system once per day in the middle of the night, that?s it. You can?t remove access to an area instantly by revoking a user?s card or access level. You have to wait for the update to happen that night or go to that lock (or locks) and manually trigger an update. The locks originally arrived with WEP security as the only available option. I rejected that and insisted they upgrade them to WPA2 or I would not allow them on the network. That was done but we ended up paying extra to have their controller modules changed out. We?ve learned the hard way that IT needs to insist on being at every possible construction and design meeting and to stay on top of these things all along the way or we end up with these kinds of messes dumped on us. We still got things dumped on us in spite of our best efforts but at least we tried. Do not trust architects or construction companies to do what makes sense in today?s IT world. They don?t understand our field any more than we understand theirs. -- Ron Parker, Director of Information Technology, Brazosport College Voice: (979) 230-3480 FAX: (979) 230-3111 http://www.brazosport.edu, KE5RON From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [ mailto:WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU] On Behalf Of Derek Johnson Sent: Thursday, July 02, 2015 12:33 PM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: [WIRELESS-LAN] Wireless Door Locks Our campus planners are looking to standardize & modernize lock systems across campus, and they're drooling over my worst nightmare wireless door locks that connect to our existing wifi network. 2.4GHz only, of course. I'm against this idea for too many reasons to list (technical & security-based), but I'm curious to hear perspectives from the community. Has anyone deployed or had to support a wifi-based door lock system? What's been your experience? On the flip side, have you successfully fended off a push for wireless door locks? If so, do tell... :) Thinking back to Lee's recent drone discussion... perhaps I can get administration interested in drone surveillance instead of wifi door locks. That's an idea I could get behind... Derek Johnson | Data Communications Coordinator FORT HAYS STATE UNIVERSITY 415 Lyman Dr. TH 101, Hays, KS 67601 (785) 628 - 5688 | dpjohn...@fhsu.edu ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
