Smart Locks for Self Storage

A keypad at the gate and a combination lock on each unit run about 95% of the facilities we set up, and that is what we recommend. Whoever tells you an unmanned facility needs a smart lock on every door may be asked whom that serves. Smart locks, an electronic lock on every unit door, cost a few hundred dollars, euros or pounds per door plus a yearly license and solve a problem most facilities do not have. An unmanned self storage facility still needs electronic access: at the gate. What else runs a facility with no on-site manager: unmanned self storage.

1. What is an access control system in self storage?

An access control system lets a tenant through the gate and into their unit without an office visit. A keypad or an app at the gate, a lock on the unit. The management software controls both: access once the rent is paid, none when it is not. The code arrives with the rental confirmation and is deleted at move-out.

Three ways to build it:

• Battery. The lock sits on the unit door and opens by Bluetooth or NFC, the contactless payment chip in the tenant’s phone. No wiring, so it is the choice for relocatable units and retrofits. The battery lasts two to ten years, depending on the system.
• Wired. Every lock runs to a controller in the corridor; the electrician runs the low-voltage cabling before the partitioning and doors go in. No battery swaps, and door sensors, alarms and cameras attach to the same wiring. Most systems built specifically for self storage are wired.
• Battery-free, by NFC. The phone powers the cylinder while it opens it, neither battery nor wire. Tenants without a suitable phone get a key fob.

Wired means planning. In a new build or a conversion, the conduit for gate, keypads and locks goes into the drawings before work starts on site. Somebody still has to connect the gate to the software, and the gate installer does not. A smart lock also needs a door built for it: the door supplier prepares it with a strike or a hasp the lock can grip. Keep that option open when you order the roller doors and partitioning.

2. What does an access control system do for an unmanned facility?

Operation with no on-site manager: the tenant rents online on a Saturday at 9 pm, pays and stands at their unit ten minutes later, and nobody had to be there. Four things the system does:

• Instant access. Gate code or app come with the rental confirmation; the move-in needs no appointment, after hours included.
• Automatic overlock. When the rent is overdue, the software disables the tenant’s code; once they pay, it works again, and nobody drives out. Your contract and your country’s law say when you may lock a tenant out. In the US, it is your state’s lien law; the US Self Storage Association keeps every state’s lien statute.
• Access log. The system shows who was on the property and when; after an incident, the log and the cameras are the trail.
• One code per tenant, one per unit. At the gate every tenant has their own code, on the unit every lock its own. Without a code per unit, a tenant moves into the bigger unit next door, never mentions it, and months later the next tenant stands in front of a full unit.

Most tenants bring their own padlock. The combination lock on a vacant unit is what makes the Saturday move-in work: the code arrives with the rental confirmation, and the tenant may swap in their own lock later.

3. Which smart locks and access control systems exist for self storage?

These 38 we know from projects, quotes and the market, with one sentence each on what they are: battery, wired, battery-free by NFC, gate and entrance only, or software for combination padlocks. New ones come every year, and most have few self storage customers; from the outside it is hard to tell which vendor will still be around in five years.

The access control system is chosen together with the management software: what the two do not integrate, somebody types by hand. Switching later works, but it is a project, because the systems are not standardised. One of our first clients had its unit doors prepared for electronic locks in 2016 and has run two systems on them since.

4. Which access control system is best?

A keypad at the gate and a combination lock on each unit serve most facilities best. The few facilities we set up with smart locks on the units had them already or wanted them anyway. The mix for a facility is chosen in the project, together with the software.

Smart locks on every unit save no work. That is the most common misconception. Owners who build think in trades and in hardware, and they want as little work in the facility as possible. Fair enough. But the work after opening comes from tenants, not from locks.

A self storage facility gets tenants from every walk of life, and many struggle with apps: cannot find the app in the store, sign up with the wrong email address, have Bluetooth off. In the US, one in five people aged 65 and older owns no smartphone. When the system runs perfectly and the tenant is the problem, the owner still gets the blame.

A large listed operator can put a help desk behind its app; a 100-unit facility with no on-site manager puts you behind it. A gate code, everybody gets.

Operators with smart locks on every unit tell us that access issues make up 20 to 70% of their support calls. The ones at 70% chose combination locks for their next facility.

“In the end the tenant calls anyway: at night, on a weekend, when you can least use it.”

Many owners choose the simple setup and plan to retrofit later. That never happens. The longer the facility runs, the smaller the problem: at a steady 90% occupancy, with a few move-ins a month, the tenants are in the units and the facility runs.

The costs, as we put them side by side in every discovery call:

• Smart locks on every unit cost a few hundred per door, plus a yearly lock license per unit.
• A keypad at the gate and a combination lock on each unit mean one keypad with its controller, a lock per unit at a few dollars or euros each, and a small yearly license for the keypad.

Side by side for your unit count, the two numbers decide it for most owners. Some say: “I wanted padlocks anyway.” Some: “If it works like that and saves that much, we’ll do it.” A few stay with the smart lock, and that is fine: Karibu recommends, the owner decides.

A tenant does not care whether the lock on their unit cost next to nothing or a few hundred: they rent the unit, not the lock.

A smart lock does two things better. Maintenance: the smoke detector or the water pipe in a unit is reached without cutting a padlock only the tenant can open. Alarms: a door sensor on the unit reports a door that opens without a code, the first sign of a break-in.

The mix is a facility question. One of our clients lets tenants into the building by app, while the drive-up units outside carry combination locks, both from the same online rental.

Batteries drain by door, not by calendar: the lock on the door to the outside dies first, interior doors last longer. If you choose battery locks, plan the swap door by door.

The plan for a failed lock is written before the facility opens. How does the unit open when the lock fails, and who drives out? A second way in (Bluetooth and NFC), a mechanical key cylinder, or a tool on site.

The installer’s on-call service drives out, or you apologise, credit the tenant’s account and repair later. Inside Self-Storage says the same: fallback measures, and someone who can get to the property quickly. With a combination lock, the fix is bolt cutters, carried by the contractor who calls in once a week.

One more risk sits in the lock license, not in the hardware. When a facility changes hands and the lock license ends with the old owner, the locks stop working too. We have seen tenants locked out of their units for weeks until the new owner had a license of their own. Whoever buys or sells a facility with smart locks puts the lock license on the checklist for the sale.

Next step: a discovery call with both numbers for your unit count. “No smart locks” is a fine answer.