But What About the Keys?…An Interview with Allegion

In a recent NACCU video interview, Allegion’s Jeff Koziol shared his vision for migrating campuses from brass keys to electronic locks. This will be the subject of his conference presentation at the upcoming NACCU Annual Conference.

“Many students have never held a physical key,” says Koziol. “Yet while some institutions are moving to mobile credentials, there’s many that are still providing students with brass keys for dorm room access.”

Many students have never held a physical key, yet many institutions are still providing brass keys for dorm room access.

Allegion is both a credential provider, and they manufacture readers that address the access control needs on a campus. This includes readers that go on interior doors to enable electronic access via card or mobile credential, effectively eliminating the brass key.

Koziol explains that they do not manufacture readers for vending machines, copy print stations, laundry, or other campus use cases.

“What we have done is filled in with different partner companies like rfIDEAS, Metramodo Smart Lockers, Castles Vending, and a whole host of others to build out that ecosystem and address all those cases,” he says.

In addition to their own credentials, Allegion readers also support both Transact and HID mobile credentials.

“I don’t think a lot of people realize it because they may see us and HID as competitors, but we are also a business partner,” says Koziol. “So if a campus is leaning more in the HID direction with wallet credentials, iClass, or Seos, we have devices that will work with that credential and preserve the investment they have already laid out for their institution.”

For institutions still using legacy ID technology, he says contactless cards can be a good intermediate path to mobile.

To find out why, click the image at the top of this page to check out the video interview. Or learn more about migrating your campus from brass keys to electronic access control here.