Smart Lock Management System

A national lock manufacturer was launching a new line of smart locks for commercial properties—think apartment buildings, office complexes, and hotels. They had the hardware figured out, but needed a robust backend system to manage thousands of devices, complex permission hierarchies, and integration with existing property management systems.

The challenge wasn't just technical—it was organizational. Property managers needed simple controls, while enterprise customers required granular audit trails and compliance reporting. The system needed to handle real-time device communication, offline-mode fallbacks, and security that could withstand determined attackers trying to gain unauthorized physical access.

We delivered a cloud-based device management platform with both web and API interfaces:

Core Platform

• Device Management: Real-time status monitoring, firmware updates over-the-air, battery level tracking, and automatic alerting for offline devices
• Access Control: Role-based permissions with time-based restrictions, temporary access codes, and emergency override protocols
• Audit & Compliance: Immutable access logs, exportable reports for compliance requirements, and anomaly detection alerts
• Multi-tenancy: Complete isolation between different property management companies while sharing infrastructure
• API Gateway: RESTful API with comprehensive documentation, webhook support for real-time events, and rate limiting

External Integrations

• Property management systems (AppFolio, Buildium)
• Single sign-on (SSO) via SAML and OAuth
• Calendar systems for automated access scheduling
• Alert systems (SMS, email, Slack, PagerDuty)

The platform handled both online and offline scenarios gracefully. Locks could operate independently if connectivity was lost, syncing changes when back online. We built in conflict resolution to handle edge cases where offline changes contradicted online permission updates.