Doors, Locks and Readers
Access Control Systems in Lahore
Card, fingerprint and face readers with electric locks, exit buttons, door sensors and proper fire-safe release. Tell us how many doors on WhatsApp and we will scope it.
Cameras Tell You What Happened. Access Control Decides What Can Happen.
A camera on the server room door records the person who walked in. A reader on the same door decides whether they get in at all, and leaves a record of every attempt. Most offices in Lahore need both, and they are cheapest to install together because the cable is pulled once.
StrixLink designs, supplies and installs access control for offices, factories, warehouses, clinics, schools and apartment buildings across Lahore. The scope covers the reader, the controller, the lock, the exit device, the power supply and the software — not just the device on the wall, which is the part clients are usually shown and the part that matters least on its own.
Systems are quoted per door after a survey, because the correct lock for a glass office door is not the correct lock for a steel factory gate. All pricing is Contact for Price. Hardware on its own can be browsed on our biometric devices page.
Ways to Open a Door
Most sites end up using two methods together — a credential for daily use and a fallback for when it fails.
RFID cards and fobs
Fast, cheap to issue and easy to cancel when someone leaves. The weakness is that cards get shared and lent, so they suit general staff doors rather than high-value rooms.
Fingerprint
Strong for accountability because the credential cannot be handed over. Performance drops with wet, dusty or worn fingers, which matters on a production floor more than in an office.
Face recognition
Hands-free and fast at busy entrances. Placement is critical — strong backlight from a glass entrance behind the user is the usual cause of poor recognition.
PIN keypad
Useful as a secondary method or for a rarely used door. On its own a PIN gets shared within a week, so treat it as a backup rather than the main credential.
Combined credentials
Card plus PIN, or face plus card, on the few doors that genuinely need it — server rooms, cash rooms, stores and record rooms.
Mobile and remote release
Door release from a phone or reception desk for visitors. Availability and features vary by controller model — confirm the exact model capability with us before you plan a workflow around it.
What a Complete Door Kit Actually Contains
Every controlled door needs all of these. Quotations that list only a reader and a lock are usually incomplete.
- Reader and controller — The device on the wall, plus the controller that makes the decision. On higher-security doors the controller belongs on the secure side, never outside the door it protects.
- The lock — Magnetic lock, electric strike or drop bolt, chosen for the door type, its frame and how heavily it is used.
- Exit device — A push-to-exit button, or a request-to-exit sensor, so nobody is ever trapped inside a room by the access system.
- Emergency release — A break-glass or emergency release unit on the exit side, wired to drop the lock directly regardless of what the controller thinks.
- Door position sensor — So the system can tell the difference between a door that opened normally and one propped open all afternoon.
- Power supply with backup — A dedicated supply with a battery, so the door behaves predictably through load shedding rather than becoming either permanently locked or permanently open.
- Cabling — Reader, lock, exit button and sensor all need cable back to the controller. This is the part that gets expensive after the walls are finished.
Lock Types and Where They Belong
| Lock | Best suited to | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| Magnetic lock (EM lock) | Glass office doors, main entrances, corridor doors | Holds only while powered, so it releases on power loss — the safest default for occupied buildings |
| Electric strike | Wooden and metal framed doors with an existing latch | Cheapest retrofit, but needs a well-aligned frame or it will bind and wear |
| Drop bolt | Frameless glass and sliding doors | Needs accurate alignment; a shifted door means the bolt misses and the door will not lock |
| Motorised or electric mortice | Main doors where you want the door to stay physically latched | More robust and more expensive, and it needs proper door preparation |
| Standalone smart lock | A single door in a home or a very small office | No cabling and quick to fit, but battery replacement becomes the ongoing maintenance task |
| Turnstile or boom barrier | Factory and campus entrances with high footfall or vehicle flow | Civil work, power and safety sensors are a large part of the cost — survey required |
Fail-Safe, Fail-Secure and Getting Out in an Emergency
This is the single most important decision on any access control job in Pakistan, and it gets skipped more often than any other.
A fail-safe lock releases when power is lost — magnetic locks work this way. A fail-secure lock stays locked when power is lost. On an occupied building, escape routes must let people out, which means the door must release on power failure and on a fire alarm signal. A store room or a strong room may justify fail-secure, but only after somebody has thought about it deliberately.
Where a fire alarm panel exists, the access control on escape route doors should be interfaced with it so that an alarm drops those locks. If your building has a fire alarm system, tell us at survey and we will design the interface into the scope.
Independently of any of that, every controlled door on an escape route gets a mechanical emergency release on the exit side. It should never take a working controller, a working network or a working credential to leave a building.
Access Control by Building Type
Offices
Main entrance, server room, accounts or cash room, store and back exit is the usual starting set. Reception gets a release button, and departing staff are removed from the system the same day.
Factories and industrial units
Main gate, production floor entry, finished goods store, spare parts store and the office block. Fingerprint readers struggle on a dusty or oily shop floor, so card or face is usually the better fit.
Warehouses and godowns
Gate, dispatch office and the high-value store. The controlled door that matters most is rarely the front one — it is the one between the yard and the stock.
Clinics and labs
Pharmacy, sample store, records room and staff-only corridors, with waiting areas left open. Restricted zones need signage as well as a lock.
Schools and campuses
Gates, administration block, staff room and record room, with the arrangement built around gate timings rather than around office hours.
Apartments and societies
Main entrance, lift lobby and parking, with credentials issued and cancelled by the building management. Individual owners can only control their own door — anything in the shared lobby or basement is a management scope.
Attendance Records and Day-to-Day Administration
Most access controllers also produce attendance data, and for many offices that is the reason the project gets approved. We configure shifts, late marks and report exports at commissioning and hand over an administrator who knows how to add and remove staff without calling us every week.
Two practical points. First, decide up front whether attendance and door control run on the same device or separate ones — sharing a reader at a busy main door creates a queue every morning. Second, agree who owns the user database and where the reports go, because staff records are personal data and access to them should be limited to the people who need it.
If you only want the devices themselves, our biometric attendance and electric lock hardware is listed separately, with model codes you can send us on WhatsApp for a current price.
Tell Us How Many Doors
Door count, door types (glass, wood, steel, sliding) and whether the building is finished or under construction is enough for us to give you a realistic scope.
Frequently asked questions
What happens to the doors during load shedding?
That depends on the lock type and the power design, which is why we specify it deliberately. Magnetic locks release when power is lost, so escape routes stay usable. Each controlled door is given a power supply with battery backup so it behaves predictably rather than surprising you at the worst moment.
Can access control be added to a building that is already finished?
Yes. The reader, lock, exit button and sensor all need cable back to the controller, so in a finished building we use surface trunking or a ceiling route. It is more visible than a first-fix installation but entirely workable, and we agree the route with you before drilling.
Fingerprint or card — which is better for a factory?
Card or face usually wins on a production floor. Fingerprint readers struggle with wet, dusty, oily or worn fingertips, and a queue at shift change is a real operational cost. Fingerprint suits office environments where the accountability of a non-transferable credential matters more.
Can the same device handle attendance and door opening?
Most can, and for a small office that is efficient. For a larger site we usually recommend separating them so the morning attendance queue does not block the main door, and so the door hardware is chosen for security rather than for reporting.
Do I need to connect the access control to my network?
Not necessarily. Standalone doors work without a network, and you download records over USB. Networked systems give you central administration, live monitoring and instant cancellation of a lost card, which becomes essential once you pass a handful of doors or more than one site.
How does access control work with a fire alarm?
Locks on escape routes should release on a fire alarm signal, so the two systems are interfaced at the panel. If you already have a fire alarm, tell us the panel type at survey. If you are installing both, we design the interface into the scope from the start.
How much does an access control system cost in Lahore?
It is priced per door and depends on the reader type, the lock, the door construction and how much cabling is needed. Everything is Contact for Price — send your door count and photos on WhatsApp for a scope and a quotation.