Granting access without a key changing hands
A furnished flat in Juan-les-Pins sees tenants, a cleaning company and sometimes a plumber pass through in a single season. With one code per stay, access opens on arrival and closes on departure, with no key safe bolted to the gate and no spare sitting in three different homes. That is the real gain, well ahead of convenience.
On a Cap property the question splits in two: there is the gate, and there is the house. A gardener or a caretaker needs neither the same access nor the same hours as the owner. Most models keep a time-stamped log of openings, which is worth something on a property lived in a few weeks a year.
Three families exist. A motor fitted over the existing cylinder, reversible, leaving the key working from outside: the simplest option in a rental. A connected cylinder, which replaces the barrel alone. And a complete smart lock, more capable but not reversible, so best ruled out if you do not own the property, which is the common case in the year-round studios along boulevard Wilson. Occupancy status decides as much as the feature list does.
What stone, batteries and the network impose
In the rampart buildings the walls are thick and the stairwell swallows signal. A Bluetooth range quoted in open air tells you nothing about what you will get from rue Sade. Remote control also needs a Wi-Fi bridge, so a working router, and an outage during an autumn storm must never leave you standing outside your own door.
Battery life is the next constraint: these locks run on cells. Check exactly what backup exists — a mechanical barrel, an emergency power contact — before buying, especially for a home shut all winter, where nobody will see the low-battery warning for weeks. At the Cap, also decide who on site will change those cells out of season.
One thing not to confuse: mechanical resistance is still that of the door. A motor added to an ordinary lock on a La Fontonne flat does nothing at all for break-in resistance. The access log is also personal data: tell the people concerned, and look at where the manufacturer stores that history.
How does this service work?
Techniques, typical situations, standards and things to watch out for: it is all on our smart lock page. This page focuses on what the service involves in Antibes.