Oracode’s benefits to Brindley Beach include greater security and convenience for guests and management, superior reliability, and durable trouble-free operation.
Background
Brindley Beach Vacations and Sales is owned and operated by Doug and Joan Brindley. The couple has been prominent in the real estate rental and sales industry since 1984 and focuses on providing exceptional service to its owners and guests. Brindley’s 600 units on the East Coast’s outer banks range from traditional beach cottages to magnificent oceanfront estates. Many are a long distance from main highways with the closest airport nearly two hours away. Visitors often travel across country to enjoy its remote destinations to ‘get away from it all’ and be immersed in the beautiful rustic, coastal environment where security and comfort are essential to their peace of mind.
The need
Most of Brindley’s 600 properties are near the Atlantic Ocean. Beautiful, yes, but also exposed to the corrosive effects of salt spray and blowing sand. The company’s challenges centered on the need to keep its vacation rental locks in reliable operating condition to reduce the time its maintenance team spent responding to guest access issues. Also, several of its owners wanted to lower their energy costs with smart thermostats. This prompted Brindley to offer a ‘connected home’ environment to monitor and control energy usage. Brindley’s management evaluated vacation rental locks from leading providers to replace their unreliable units. They wanted secure, flexible keyless locks that could communicate wirelessly and were compatible with a remote monitoring system to give them a competitive advantage over other vacation rental companies.
The dormakaba Oracode solution
- Oracode 480i and other iSeries keyless entry vacation rental locks
- Oracode Smart Controllers
- BeHome247 Enterprise Property Control integration
The benefit
Oracode’s benefits to Brindley Beach include greater security and convenience for guests and management, superior reliability, and durable trouble-free operation. It also enables a connected guest and management experience with easy integration to BeHome247 to create a total enterprise property management platform. The BeHome247 software integration enables Brindley to evolve to an energy efficient, connected home using occupancy perimeters to automatically control energy usage without staff intervention.
Chris Trusz, maintenance manager for Brindley Beach Vacations & Sales, said, “Our 600 units are spread over 70 miles and most are near the beach. Salt intrusion in our old locks was causing our maintenance team to spend too much time traveling out to units to keep our locks working. Oracode’s keyless locks functionally perform very well. They save us a great deal of time and related expenses that used to be spent responding to support calls. It is a perfect fit for our owners and guests. We have steadily upgraded our homes and are now installing Oracode’s new 480i keyless locks. The 480i enables us to remotely access each unit via the internet to improve security. We trust the Oracode technology.”
Greater level of security
Brindley managers create a secure digital access code associated with a property’s Oracode lock for each guest before they arrive. When a guest makes a reservation, Brindley verifies payment and emails the code to them. The code is time- and date-sensitive to ensure the unit is locked and protected until the date and time of the appropriate reservation. Guests cannot open a door before or after the reservation time to protect departing guests and housekeeping staff that may be servicing the property. Trusz also issues codes to contractors for a specific time and date, so they can only enter properties while vacant. “Oracode locks are reliable, and they make our units safe and secure. Oracode’s technology also enables us to issue safe access codes for the 480i lock even when the Internet connection or electricity to the property is down.”
Oracode 480i locks provide a high level of unit security by automatically tracking each time a specific assigned code is used. Trusz said, “Security is an important reason we selected Oracode, I use the Oracode audit reports whenever necessary to see who was the last person in a unit. Some guests request a refund claiming they did not use the unit. But when we checked the Oracode audit report we were able to verify when they entered the home.” Owners are also able to use Oracode to confirm if a contractor performed the specified work in their unit by checking their unit’s lock audit. dormakaba is a great solution partner for Brindley.”
Remote connection
The new Oracode 480i electronic locks send entry notifications through a secure website to keep owners and managers informed of real-time events such as guest arrivals, early checkout, low battery alert, or if the Internet is down. The 480i’s secure time-sensitive code eliminates metal keys and delivers greater reliability to save management time.
“We wanted to be ahead of our owners with connected technology. Our goal was to control the property thermostats with Oracode Smart Controllers, and it has worked well,” Trusz said. “We are also starting to use Smart Controllers with sensors on sliding glass doors and other unit doors to shut down AC if the unit detects that doors are kept open. This reduces unnecessary energy costs.”
Additionally, the Oracode Smart Controller seamlessly communicates with BeHome247 to interact with a unit’s environmental controls. “Guests will sometimes call to say their heat or AC is not working. With the Smart Controller and BeHome247 dashboard, I can remotely access their home’s thermostat, AC and heater units to confirm if service is needed,” Trusz said. “Often, it is simply a matter of me remotely setting the thermostat correctly. Being able to remotely monitor and control our properties’ operation is a huge labor saving benefit of dormakaba.”