Apartment Building Smart Lock: Common Entrance and Unit Doors

A multi-unit building has two separate access problems at once: a common entrance shared by every resident, and individual unit doors that need to stay private to each household. A single fob system for the whole building solves the entrance but says nothing about who has keys to a specific flat, while a per-unit-only approach leaves the building's front door without proper access control.

1. Fit the common entrance with a card/fob-capable TTLock-compatible lock so every resident carries one credential for the building, issued and revoked by building management as tenants move in and out.
2. Fit each unit door with its own separate lock, under either the resident's own account or a management account, depending on whether the building wants centralized or per-resident control of unit-level access.
3. Keep entrance and unit credentials distinct. A resident's building fob should not automatically unlock their own flat, and vice versa, so losing one credential does not expose both layers of access.
4. Add a gateway per floor or per building, since Bluetooth range does not extend across an entire building. This lets management issue or revoke access to any door without physically visiting it.
5. Register visitors and contractors against the entrance lock only where possible, with unit-level access granted separately by the resident for their own door.

Residents and contractors have different access patterns, and treating them the same creates either unnecessary friction or unnecessary risk.

• Residents generally need a card or fob for the common entrance that does not expire while their tenancy continues, plus their own credential for their unit door managed independently.
• Contractors such as maintenance staff or delivery personnel should get a timed passcode limited to the specific date and time of the job, valid only on the entrance and, if needed, the specific unit being serviced — not a standing credential.
• Building staff who need regular access, such as cleaners or a superintendent, are better served with a cyclic passcode restricted to working hours than an unrestricted one.
• Move-outs should trigger immediate revocation of both the building fob and any unit-level credential the former resident held, checked against the full list of doors they had access to.

• Gateway coverage gaps. A large building may need several gateways, since Bluetooth range typically covers only a floor or a section, not an entire structure.
• Mixing management and resident control. Decide upfront whether unit doors are managed by the building or by individual residents, since retrofitting that decision later means re-adding every lock under a new account.
• High-traffic entrance batteries. A common entrance sees far more unlock events per day than a single flat, so battery checks should be more frequent there.
• Smart Lukko is independent third-party software. It works with TTLock-compatible hardware from various manufacturers but is not affiliated with TTLock/Sciener, so building-wide deployments should confirm every installed lock model is genuinely compatible.