What replacing your condominium's access control really costs: everything that goes on the bill
4 min read
Comparing access control proposals is harder than it looks, because every company puts different items on the bill. A cheap proposal may leave out installation, support or the lock, and an expensive one may include all of that plus a year of warranty. This article lists what has to be on the bill for the comparison to be fair.
Equipment: what goes on the wall
Face recognition terminals are the most visible item and one of the most expensive. The price varies a lot by model: QR code reading, cards, resistance to rain and sun, and user capacity all change the number. A condominium needs one terminal per controlled door, and some doors need two, one to enter and one to leave.
Beyond the terminals, there is the magnetic or electric lock on each door, the exit button, the power supply, the network cabling to each terminal and the local device that manages it all. If the condominium already has compatible terminals, reusing them cuts the initial investment considerably.
Installation and construction work
Installation is usually quoted separately and depends heavily on the building. Running a network cable to the garage gate may require construction work, and an old facade may need a bracket for the terminal. Ask for the site visit to happen before the proposal, so these items don't show up as a surprise on the day.
Adjusting the lock, testing each door and the initial setup are part of it too. Ask whether importing the enrollment that already exists in the old terminals or in a spreadsheet is included, because re-enrolling every resident from scratch has a cost in time that rarely appears in the proposal.
The monthly fee and what it covers
Almost every modern system has a monthly fee, and that's where comparisons mislead the most. Ask, item by item, what it includes:
- The management dashboard and the number of users who can use it.
- System updates, without a technician's visit.
- Backups off site and the ability to restore them.
- Monitoring of the system and an alert when something stops.
- Support: channels, service hours and response time.
- Replacement of the local device if it fails.
A monthly fee without support and without backups looks cheap until the first problem. The cost of a one-off technician visit and a full re-enrollment after a failure usually exceeds many months of fees.
The costs nobody puts in the proposal
Some items belong to the condominium rather than the company, but they are part of the bill. The UPS (battery backup) for the terminals, the lock and the network is the most forgotten, and it's what keeps the first blackout from turning into a night with a jammed gate. The internet needs an adequate plan and, ideally, a backup link. Power for the terminals and maintenance of the locks, which are mechanical parts, count too.
There is also the administration's time: enrolling residents, chasing photos, updating the records with every move. A system that makes those tasks easy saves hours a month for whoever runs the building, and that time has a cost even when it shows up on no invoice.
How to compare two proposals
Build a table with the same items in both columns: equipment per door, installation, the monthly fee and what it includes, support and warranty. Then work out the total cost over three years, adding the initial investment and the monthly fees. That number often flips the first impression, because a higher fee with everything included ends up cheaper than cheap equipment with one-off charges.
Compare it with what the condominium spends on the front desk today as well. If the switch lets you cut shifts or replace part of the on-site service, that saving goes on the other side of the ledger.
How Abriu handles it
Abriu's proposal is made for each condominium after a site visit, and shows separately what is equipment, what is installation and what is the monthly fee. The fee includes the hub installed in the condominium, the dashboard for as many users as needed, automatic updates, the daily encrypted backup off site, monitoring and support.
Compatible Hikvision terminals already in place are reused, and the enrollment stored on them is imported with photos, cards and fingerprints. What stays with the condominium, such as the UPS, the internet and the locks, is listed in the proposal so the bill is complete before the owners' meeting.