Keypad, Remote, Intercom, Phone Entry or App? Choosing Gate Access Control for a Home or a Managed Property

Six credentials, compared

The six common credentials differ less in convenience than in how easily they are shared, copied and cancelled. The table sets them side by side; the notes under it explain what to ask about each.

Keypad codes

A keypad hands out access without hardware, so give every person or household its own code and delete it when the arrangement ends. Keypads differ in capacity and protection: one manufacturer’s stand-alone model stores 400 codes, accepts hold-open codes, and shuts out a guesser for one to nine minutes after three to nine wrong entries. On a solar-powered gate, ask for a low-power keypad. The same maker says only keyed switches draw nothing on standby, while keypads, card readers and radio receivers draw a little all day.

Remotes

A remote is a small radio transmitter learned to a receiver at the gate. It is a radio device covered by the FCC’s Part 15 rules, and the label those rules require says it must accept any interference received; our troubleshooting guide covers a remote that stops working. For administration, ask two questions. Can a car’s built-in transmitter learn the code? One manufacturer notes that many cars now carry code copiers and asks how many owners delete the code when they sell the car; its own remotes use codes those units cannot copy. And can the receiver delete one remote? One stand-alone receiver stores up to 1,250 codes and removes them singly or in blocks. A receiver without that feature has to be cleared, and every remote you keep learned again.

Cards and fobs

A card or fob is read by a proximity reader, typically within a few inches of the housing in DASMA’s definition, and the reader passes its number to a controller that decides whether it is valid. Because the controller holds the list, a lost fob is cancelled there, not at the gate. Ask what kind of card is proposed: encrypted cards and readers are sold because they are harder to duplicate than standard proximity cards. One maker also notes that its readers send a standard 26-bit Wiegand number so they work with most other controllers, which keeps a later change of vendor possible.

Phone apps and smart gate openers

A smart gate opener adds an app to an existing operator through a small controller wired to the operator’s inputs. Signal comes first. One maker of these modules notes that most gate openers sit beyond the range of the house Wi-Fi, which is why its app also connects by Bluetooth. Another maker’s switch needs 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi for setup and remote use, falls back to Bluetooth within about 20 to 30 feet, allows 20 users, and shows whether the gate is open only if the operator has a position output or a separate magnetic sensor is fitted. Apps add history logs, schedules and shared guest keys, and one maker’s property-management app works only through its cellular or internet subscriptions.

Telephone entry

Telephone entry is the call box at a multi-unit gate. A visitor finds a name in the directory and enters its code, the panel dials the number stored for it, and, in DASMA’s description, the resident most commonly lets the visitor in by pressing 9 on their phone; the panel can only call numbers in its memory. It also needs a channel: the internet, cellular service, or a traditional phone line, which DASMA no longer recommends because carriers are moving to digital service and some are dropping old lines altogether. Panels that serve the public carry accessibility requirements too, summarized in our apartment and HOA guide. A video intercom adds a camera so whoever answers can see the caller; its network and privacy questions have their own sections below.

A single home: start with who comes and goes

For one household, start with a remote for each car, a keypad code for each person who walks or drives in, and an intercom or app for visitors. List the people first:

• Drivers who live there: a remote each, or an app if you also want an alert when the gate opens.
• People who come on a schedule, such as a cleaner or a gardener: their own codes, deleted when the work ends.
• Visitors and deliveries: an intercom you can answer from your phone, or a code that you change afterward.
• Anyone on foot: a walk gate with its own lock, so nobody uses the vehicle gate. See pedestrian gates.

Check the operator before buying anything: every control connects to its inputs and receiver, and a remote that looks identical may use a different code system. Our residential gate openers page covers that check. At a home, cars can leave on a remote, a button, or the free-exit loop described below.

Gate access control systems for HOAs, apartments and businesses

At a managed property, pick the system by how it will be administered, because adding and removing people is an ongoing job, not a one-time setup. DASMA’s data sheet on telephone entry and access control separates two kinds of site. In a protected area, an authorized person may let others in, as residents buzz in guests at an apartment building. In a restricted area, only the system’s administrator issues credentials, as a contractor’s yard or a storage facility might require.

A protected site needs a directory or app that lets residents answer and open; a restricted site needs strict issuing, entry logs, and credentials that leave with the person. Settle these before choosing hardware:

• One credential per person, so a move-out or a resignation means deleting a record, not re-coding the whole site.
• Tailgating. Some commercial operators offer partial-open and anti-tailgating features; ask whether yours does and how they work with the loops.
• Listing. DASMA says telephone entry and access control units should be listed to UL 294, the standard for access control system units.
• A way out. Readers with a standard output, and resident data you can export, keep the next change of vendor possible; the self-storage access guide has a fuller checklist.

Resident records, fees and account ownership are covered in our apartment and HOA gate guide; operators, readers and loops for these sites are on commercial gate access control.

Guests and deliveries

Guests and deliveries get through in one of three ways: someone inside answers and opens the gate, a temporary credential works for a set time, or the gate stays open during set hours.

• Answer and open. Telephone entry and video intercoms connect the caller to a person, who opens the gate from a phone or an indoor station.
• Temporary credentials. Entry systems and apps can issue short-lived access: one entry system’s specification lists ten temporary access codes, and app makers offer guest keys you can share from your phone.
• Time windows. Hold-open codes, time zones on receivers, and app schedules can keep a site open, or let a credential work, only at set times. Anyone can walk or drive in while a gate is held open, so use that only where it is acceptable.

At a managed property, the directory and the temporary credentials need a named owner who keeps them current.

Getting out: free exit, loops and people on foot

Cars can leave without a credential when the operator has a wire loop in the pavement that tells it a car is waiting on the secure side. DASMA calls it a free exit loop: a loop that starts an open command for vehicles leaving a secure area. One loop manufacturer’s typical layout works like this:

• Two reversing loops, one each side of the gate and wired in series to one detector, keep a closing gate from coming down on a car in the opening.
• An optional exit loop further inside opens the gate for a departing car. It needs a detector of its own, and it sits at least 4 feet, or one short-side length, from the loop next to it.
• A shadow loop under a swing gate’s arc covers the area the reversing loops miss; the operator acts on it only when the gate is fully open.

Loop sizing for trucks and vans is on our commercial access control page. A loop protects vehicles, not people; the photo eyes and edges in our UL 325 guide do that job. Some sites control exits as well, with a reader at both the entry and the exit, which DASMA calls card in, card out; fire-access rules still apply, as the HOA guide explains. People on foot need their own gate: UL 325 operators are for vehicle gates only, and the standard expects a separate pedestrian opening wherever people walk in.

Power and internet outages: what keeps working

In an outage each part of the system fails on its own terms, so ask the question device by device: the operator, the readers and panels, and the network behind them.

• The operator. How the gate behaves without power is set by the operator and its backup. One manufacturer builds some operators so the gate can be pushed open when power fails, noting that many fire authorities require it; our power outage article explains the options.
• Keypads, readers and call boxes. These need power too, and a battery in the operator does not necessarily feed them. One manufacturer sells an inverter that runs the whole access system, phone panel, controller and keypads included, from a 12-volt battery.
• The internet. A cloud-managed intercom behaves differently offline. One maker’s help page says that, when its intercom controls the door directly, it keeps its last configuration so people already enrolled can still badge in; it stores entry and call records to upload later, and it cannot place calls unless they are routed over the local network. App control falls back to Bluetooth range on modules that have it.

Write the answers down for each device, along with how to open the gate by hand, and keep the list where a resident or a manager can find it without walking through the gate. A call box that goes silent after a phone-service change is covered in the intercom section of our troubleshooting guide.

Cameras, recordings and privacy

A video intercom is a camera at your property line, so decide who can watch, what is recorded and how long it is kept before the system goes live.

• Accounts. List who can view live video and saved clips, and remove former residents, staff and vendors when they leave.
• Retention. Ask where clips are stored, for how long, and who can delete or export them.
• Audio. California Penal Code §632 makes it an offense to intentionally record a confidential conversation without the consent of everyone in it; a conversation is not confidential where the people in it may reasonably expect to be overheard or recorded. If the panel records audio, post a notice and ask counsel how the law applies to your system.
• Directories. A telephone-entry directory shows a code next to each listing; decide whether it shows full names, initials or unit numbers.

Where the controls go

UL 325 sets the distance: a control that opens the gate stands six feet or more from its moving parts, out of reach through, over, under or around the leaf, and DASMA treats six feet as a floor that the site can raise. Two controls are handled differently. Emergency switches reserved for fire, police or medical crews can go anywhere within sight of the gate, and a stop or reset button must be within sight so whoever presses it can see the gate is clear.

Mount panels on something solid. DASMA’s telephone-entry guidance names a post, a wall or a pilaster, and lists places to avoid: fence panels, fence posts, and the spot next to a spring-loaded pedestrian gate, because vibration can upset the electronics. It also suggests a display face north or south so the sun does not wash it out. Driver reach and waiting room off the street are covered on our intercom and phone entry page.