After a recent webinar, property managers and owners asked many questions about smart entrance 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 various products that work together. This is important. Here’s why. It’s wise to get the entrance control solution you need right now. But your right-now solution must scale to accommodate every part of your property and its changing requirements.
LiftMaster’s Total Access Control Solution: Software, Hardware, App
The audience asked how the components of our fully integrated access control technology can be used to meet differing needs. Think of cloud-based access control as a box of LEGOs®. You use the interlocking pieces to build the solution you need now. But you can extend the solution knowing that each component is engineered to integrate and install seamlessly. The result is your property’s security, your residents’ safety, and the convenience of automated entrance control management.
LiftMaster hardware, such as smart video intercoms, gate operators, smart hubs, door controllers, and smart locks, are designed and built to work together for easy installation. The hardware is called smart because it’s connected to the internet via the myQ Community cloud platform.
Integrated Smart Entrance Control Technology
How LiftMaster Helps Managers and Integrators
Here’s what happens after introducing or updating your property’s smart access control. It’s the site 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 installation. 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.
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 occur. 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, repeatedly beating up our products, punching and pounding the hardware, and stress-testing the myQ Community software. 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. Our Customers Are Worth It
Our built-to-last products are also subjected to rigorous edge case testing. This differs 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 informs how we design and build quality products.
What Happens if LiftMaster’s Entrance 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.
Diagnosing a product problem is devilishly difficult, especially if it’s intermittent. But just like CSI-style forensic experts, our Field Services team does that. They start with an exhaustive analysis of the situation, including the precise physical location of the product. 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, procedures, checklists, and redundant tests that help us produce quality products. But if a problem arises, our in-house team of engineers will diagnose and resolve it — or die trying. That’s because we understand our success depends entirely on ensuring you succeed with LiftMaster smart entrance control products.
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