Leveraging a history that spans more than 70 years, Minnesota-based Larco continues to make waves in the security market. Larco, which specializes in automated door systems and other secured entry systems, recently began a collaboration with Datakey, a fellow Atek sister company specializing in keypad systems, on the Guardian II system.

Scott Gardeen, business development engineer of Larco, describes the system as a stand-alone access control system, powered by 9-12 volts. This low power functioning system means that it is capable of being administered to remote areas with the same success as a centralized security system.

Paul Plitzuweit, business development engineer, elaborated on this, stating, “Property management often wishes to control access to building entrances and shared areas such as laundry rooms, party rooms, exercise facilities and swimming pools. Due to the vast distances between these areas, online systems can be prohibitively expensive due to the wiring costs. With the Guardian II system, there are no network wires to run.”

Gardeen commented on the philosophy that drives the new Larco system stating, “We wanted to make a low-cost, full-featured product that didn’t require a software engineer to run. So we designed the software with a left to right approach, with very user friendly screens; simplfying the technical aspects of the program and putting it into a user friendly system. That is why we refer to this system as an IT-free system.”

While this system is streamlined to be user friendly, it certainly does not lack features. Plitzuweit elaborates, “If you want to automatically restrict access to the pool to published pool hours, the schedule feature can do that. If you want to temporarily keep users who are behind in their rent from using the pool, you can remove their name from the admit list until they are current. If you have a party room, you can issue an electronic key that will only give the tenant access for the specific dates/hours that they have reserved. If they lose or don’t return the key it won’t open the party room after that period.”

With three of the four models of controllers that Larco offers weighing in at under $400, and with a purchasing style that does not necessitate bulk shipments, Larco and the Guardian II system allow the user to implement the system in a way that meets their specific needs.