What is an Electric Door Locks and How Does It Work?
Electronic door locks are a way to be able to replace the keys or even to add additional features such as remote locking or even unlocking. Despite most commonly found on the cars, very many cutting edge security providers are providing the electronic door locks for homes as well as businesses. As well as any other type of the door lock, latch or the bolt has been made across the opening between the side of the door and the door frame, hence preventing access.
This can be a ‘spring bolt’, that can be held in place by the springs and it does allow the door to close when it is locked or even more secure ‘the deadbolt’ that does stay in place until it is manually unlocked. In both of the cases, locking or even unlocking is achieved by being able to rotate visible element to move bolt or even latch.
You can also check out this: Top 10 Electric Door Locks in 2019
How does an electric door lock work?
The traditional key locks use some variations of ‘pin and tumbler’ method, in which lock cylinder is usually held in place with a line of small metal pins, each of them consisting of the upper as well as the lower half. When the key is inserted as well as turned, uneven serrated edges to ensure that every pin gets to be moved to a certain distance. The cylinder can be turned only when each and every pin is moved just enough to easily create straight separation between upper as well as lower halves of all the pins.
The electronic door locks also do involve parts that are known as ‘actuators’ that does connect bolt or even cylinder to the small motor completely buried within the door or even frame itself. The motor is well controlled by the electrical impulse that can be triggered in various ways; by the electronic card reader, by the keypad or even by the wireless remote control sensor. Either way, the electronic door lock has been configured to begin the motor driven actuator only once it has been able to receive correct electronic input. Every method of locking has got its own pros and cons. The physical keys including the metal keys, key cards or even the handheld remotes, can easily be lost or even damaged, while the numerical key codes can easily be forgotten.
The key codes can easily and quickly be changed by the user when necessary while one is changing the physical locks and keys is highly involved, requiring specialized hardware as well as expertise. The power failures are quite problematic for the purely electronic door locks that cause them to be able to remain locked or even unlocked until electricity has been restored.
On most of the electronic door locks, you are going to find some combination of the physical and the electronic locking control on the same door. For instance, you may have the physical key setup and the emergency backup, but use remote or keypad to lock and also unlock the door on the day to day basis. This offers an extra layer of convenience and safety for use, but can also offer additional functionality as well.
In such cases of car, this does mean that you can lock as well as unlock doors while still some distance away from your vehicle. With homes or even businesses, this would even mean more. The automated systems can easily be programmed to lock doors for you at set times during the day. Just in case you may forget. The remote monitoring apps do allow you to easily use the smartphone to see if there are unlocked doors and lock them from anywhere in this world. In some worst case scenario, you can go ahead and unlock the door remotely for quick and nondestructive access to the fire as well as police personnel if an emergency occurs when you are away from the home. It is not all the home security packages that include the electronic door locks with remote monitoring.
Benefits of the electric door locks
There are very many advantages to the electronic door locks over the traditional door locks. In this part, we shall be able to discuss some of the advantages:
Security
The most important benefit to be able to choose the electronic door lock over the old locks and the key method is that it is highly secure from those who are looking to try their own luck. Whether that is by picking the lock or even attempting to grab the keys through the letterbox. Get to choose the pin code that only you and the family members are known and change it quite regularly so as to ensure the loved one is kept safe and very sound. The electric door locks can also be able to help in protecting the vulnerable people and are useful in care homes and also hospitals where more there is a need for more attention to be paid to whereabouts of the residents or the patients.
No Keys
The nightmare scenario is real especially when one loses keys. Well, you can easily forget such problems when you get yourself electric door lock. There will be no need to rush around looking for them when you are in a hurry and there is no need to have a bulky set of the keys on you all the times. It does minimize the list of the essentials which you need to carry around with you and in our own view, it is such a good thing.
Flexibility
The electronic locks can easily be programmed whenever you do need them to be making them a very ideal choice for if you are running office or even building in the university where a large number of people enter on regular basis, It is not plausible to be able to give out the key to everyone who would need one in such situations hence making electric lock a perfect solution, the building’s security does remain but the codes can be changed easily if the staff members leave or the new term commences.
You can also check out this: Top 10 Electric Door Locks in 2019
Authentication Methods which are used by Electric door locks
One of the features of the electronic locks is that locks can be deactivated as well as activated by authentication, without the use of the traditional physical key. Here are some of the authentication methods:
Biometrics
Biometric locks are how people in movies about spies and future lock their doors but such technology has been in existence for a while now. Quality of the sensor is going to easily determine the effectiveness of this type of access. As biometrics have become more prominent as a recognized means of positive identification, their use in the security systems also increases. Some of the electronic locks get to take advantage of the technologies such as the fingerprint scanning, iris scanning retinal scanning as well as the voice print identification to be able to authenticate the users.
New iPhone, as well as the DMV, tend to use biometrics in way of the fingerprint scanners but such biometrics are usually more than fingerprints. Iris scans and retinal scans of the eye, the facial recognition as well as the voice print recognition are all the examples of the biometric readings. Well, the quality of the sensors is going to determine the effectiveness of such type of access.
Advantages of the biometrics
- One is the key to the locks.
- There are no keys or even codes to be able to lose or even remember.
- Biometrics which locks accepts can easily be changed at any time without the need of rekeying or even redoing the system.
Disadvantages of Biometrics
- The forgiving sensor can easily allow a picture of you to easily open the lock.
- The unforgiving sensor can keep you locked out of the door/locks.
RFID
The radio frequency identification is the use of the object, which is typically referred to as an RFID tag that is applied to or even incorporated into the product, person or even animal for purpose of identification and tracking using the radio waves. Some of the tags can easily be read from some several meters away and beyond the line of sight of the reader. This tech has also been used in the modern electronic locks.
The key difference is that the signal can easily open the lock from farther away, You will not need a direct line of the sight for such device to be able to interact with an electronic lock, It does suffer from similar merits and demerits of the electronic lock to token.
Advantages of RFID
- The range is always greater for the key.
- Allows a smartphone to be your key,
- Devices can easily be set to be able to open some doors and also not others.
- The range is always greater for the key.
Disadvantages of RFID
- Devices can easily get damaged.
- The device can get lost.
- Some of the devices can be expensive to replace.
Security tokens
Another way that you can easily be authenticated is by using security tokens. This means needs one to scan or even swipe with a security token such as the smart card or even similar or also interact token with the lock. For instance, some of the locks can easily access the stored credentials on the personal digital assistant or even a smartphone by using Bluetooth, Infrared or the NFC data transfer methods.
Numerical codes, passphrases, and passwords
Well, perhaps the most common way of the electronic lock gets to use the keypad to enter the numerical code or even password for the authentication. Some get to feature audible response to every press. Combination lengths are between 4 and six digits long.
The access code is another way of authentication. The access code is a wide series of interactions in a very specific order with the keypad of some kind. Such types of electronic locking mechanisms are common on most types of safes. Variations of such code are usually endless, that makes them highly secure against any guess based attacks. Codes could be numbers, directions or even letters. The color coding can be used so that code can be used and it may seem as If it is numeric code when it is a sequence of colors. With endless ability to get creative, it does make sense that such a method suffers from the problem of human error. The code can easily be seen and copied or even simply forgotten.
Advantages
- The system only needs memorization of the code and a way to be able to enter it.
- Various codes can easily be used for various doors and master the codes which work for all the doors.
- Length, as well as the number of options, can make the guessing of the code quite hard.
Disadvantages
- This code can easily be seen by the others and also copied.
- The code can easily be forgotten by those who do need it.
- Use of the multiple codes does increase the chance of the code being guessed.
Authentication Token
There are cases when they are referred to as tokens as they are the physical device which is needed to interact with lock, much like the bus or arcade token interacts with the machine. Such authentication devices can easily be a digital device which sends out an infrared signal or swipe cards. Such locks are usually defined by the need to have a line of sight between user and lock. You must use the device within very close proximity of lock.
Advantages of Authentication Token
- The devices can easily be set to open the doors and not others.
- The locks can easily be reset to be able to reject any of such devices at any time.
Disadvantages of Authentication Token
- Devices can easily be damaged.
- They can be lost.
- Some of the devices can be quite high to replace.
You can also check out this: Top 10 Electric Door Locks in 2019
There is quite a lot that needs to be considered when one is examining the electric door locks. With the above-detailed information, you should easily discern for yourself what you do need. It is important that you pay attention to practicality and diversity in security. Get to implement methods which are going to work for your needs and combine different locks throughout the home or even office. At the root of the great security, there must be planning as well as forethought. Preparedness is the root of protection as well as prevention, and this is especially in the security industry.
