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Bronx Office at 460 E Fordham Rd · NYS Licensed Low-Voltage Contractor · Co-ops, Condos, Rentals & Two-Family Homes

Smart Lock
Installation in
the Bronx

Second Locks Above the Bottom Lock · Steel Apartment Doors · Vestibule & Street-Door Keypads · Two-Family & Row-House Entries

In the Bronx the first question about a smart lock is not which brand. It is whose door it is. NYCHA keeps the bottom lock on every public-housing apartment. Parkchester North tells owners and their tenants not to touch the bottom cylinder. Co-op City shareholders hand units back to Riverbay in their original condition. A homeowner in Williamsbridge or Throggs Neck who rents out the second floor owes that tenant a key lock and a key. We sort out who controls the door before anything is drilled, then fit a lock that respects every keyholder and still opens from inside with one hand.

Bronx crews dispatched from Fordham Road · Page by Anwar Timothy (NYS license #12000287431), reviewed and updated October 17, 2026

AESS technician drilling to mount a keypad smart lock on a brownstone stoop door in the Bronx
An AESS technician in a black polo kneels with a screwdriver at the edge of a dark-framed glass door, fitting an electric strike, with a wall sign behind him directing employees and visitors to the main entrance.
Bronx Smart Lock Quote
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Not sure whether your building lets you change the lock? Call (646) 490-0629 or send the 60-second form with a photo of the inside of the door. We tell you, before anyone climbs your stairs, which locks your building rules leave open to you and who will need a key afterwards.

  • Apartment-door work priced flat after a free look at the door — the written figure is the bill
  • Street-door and vestibule keypads priced from the Bronx access-control figures already published on this site, with no Bronx surcharge
  • NYS license #12000287431 · insured · dispatched from our office at 460 E Fordham Rd
AESS technician checking the locked status of a keypad smart lock in the mobile app after installation in the Bronx
Confirming lock status, access codes and the activity log from the phone.
The Neighborhood

Why Bronx Properties Need Smart Lock Installation Planned Around the Keyholder

Ask ten Bronx residents who controls their front door and you will hear ten different answers. A NYCHA tenant in Edenwald or Mott Haven lives behind a bottom lock that the housing authority installed and will not let them replace. A shareholder in one of Co-op City's 35 towers owns shares in a cooperative that expects the apartment back in its original state. A Parkchester condo owner bought the unit but not the bottom cylinder, which the condominium's rules say belongs to the condominium. A renter on the Grand Concourse has a private landlord, a lease, and a state law that lets them add a lock of their own. A family that owns an attached house in Throggs Neck or a two-family in Wakefield controls every door, but owes the upstairs tenant a lock and a key. Same borough, same kind of smart lock box on the shelf, five completely different jobs.

That is why most of the bad smart-lock outcomes we hear about in the Bronx have nothing to do with the hardware. A keypad deadbolt goes in where the bottom lock used to be, and the management office treats it as an unauthorized alteration. A shareholder installs a lock with no key cylinder, and the building has no way in when a pipe bursts upstairs. An owner of a two-family house decides to go app-only on the tenant's door and discovers that the city's Housing Maintenance Code says the owner of a dwelling must provide a key lock and at least one key. The lock worked perfectly in each case. The plan did not.

The rules that decide these jobs are written down, and we read them before we quote. New York's Multiple Dwelling Law, section 51-c, gives tenants of multiple dwellings the right to install their own lock, separate from the owner's, no more than three inches in circumference, with a duplicate key to the landlord on request — but the same sentence carves out buildings under the supervision and control of a municipal housing authority. NYCHA's own resident handbook fills that gap for public housing: tenants may not replace the bottom lock, may buy an additional lock and are responsible for it, and NYCHA reserves the right to break it in an emergency. The Parkchester North Condominium's rules say owners and their tenants may not change the bottom lock cylinder, may add or change a second cylinder, and must file all unit door keys with the management office. Riverbay's published FAQ for Co-op City says outgoing shareholders are responsible for restoring their unit to its original standard. Each of those sentences changes which smart lock fits.

Then there are the doors themselves. The University Neighborhood Housing Program, which tracks Bronx buildings through its Building Indicator Project, put the median age of the borough's multifamily apartment buildings at 87 years in 2014. That means steel-clad and hollow-metal apartment doors, mortise locks set into the door edge, frames that have been painted a dozen times, and a ghost-map of old holes where police locks, rim cylinders and chain guards came and went. Post-war towers, from Co-op City to the Riverdale high-rises along the Henry Hudson Parkway, trade that problem for concrete corridors that weaken Wi-Fi and Bluetooth at the door.

And the Bronx has a reason to take door hardware more seriously than anywhere in the city. On January 9, 2022, a fire that began with a defective space heater at Twin Parks North West, a 19-story building at 333 East 181st Street, spread smoke through the tower because self-closing doors failed to close; seventeen people died. The City Council's response, Local Law 71 of 2022, required HPD to proactively inspect self-closing doors in buildings at high risk of fire fatality. In its first year of those inspections HPD issued 853 self-closing door violations in 66 Bronx buildings. A smart lock that keeps a door from latching on its own is not a minor annoyance here. It is exactly the defect inspectors are looking for.

Bronx facts that shape a smart lock job

  • 19.7 percent: the Bronx homeownership rate in 2024, according to the NYU Furman Center — roughly four of every five households rent, so most apartment doors have more than one keyholder.
  • 87 years: the median age of Bronx multifamily buildings of five or more units, from the University Neighborhood Housing Program's 2014 analysis of nearly 8,000 buildings — the stock of steel doors and mortise locks.
  • 15,372 apartments: Co-op City's 35 high-rise towers and seven townhouse clusters, run by the Riverbay Corporation, where move-out restoration is the shareholder's responsibility.
  • 12,271 apartments in 171 red-brick buildings: Parkchester, where the condominium owns the bottom lock and keys to every unit door are filed with management under Parkchester North's rules.
  • $47.25: what NYCHA charges a resident's account for a new lock and keys after a daytime lockout drill-out, per the 2024 resident handbook — NYCHA drills out resident-installed locks on request but does not replace them.
  • 853 violations in 66 buildings: self-closing door violations HPD issued in the Bronx during its first year of Local Law 71 proactive inspections, 27 percent of the citywide total.

Most Bronx building owners who ask about apartment smart locks end up talking about the street door too. Our access control installation team in the Bronx handles vestibule fob readers and keypads, and the Abstract Enterprises intercom installers in the Bronx keep the buzzer and door release working alongside them.

AESS technician servicing the keypad wiring of a smart lock during a repair visit in the Bronx
Repair visit — opening the keypad to check the harness and contacts on a lock that stopped responding.
Repair Capture

Bronx Smart Lock Beeping, Blank or Offline

A keypad that stopped lighting up after the cold snap, a motor that grinds because the steel door no longer meets the strike, a bridge that dropped off after a new router went in, codes that will not sync to a parent's phone, or a vestibule strike that buzzes but no longer releases — those are service calls, and we treat them that way. We book the next open 2-hour window we can, and most alignment, battery and pairing faults are fixed in one to two hours once a tech is standing at the door. If the fault is the building's front door rather than your own lock, a failed electric strike repair is $295–$485 on our published Bronx door-buzzer pages. Call (646) 490-0629 and say it is a smart lock problem, or see our door buzzer repair page for Fordham if the trouble is downstairs.

AESS technician fastening the strike for a keypad smart lock on an office glass-frame door in the Bronx
Business smart lock on an aluminum office door — codes per employee, no keys to collect.
What We Install

Smart Lock Installation Services in the Bronx

Every Bronx keyless job we take is one of the services below, or two of them on the same visit. Each one finishes the same way: the door swings shut and latches without a push, the lock opens from inside with one simple motion, everyone who is owed a key still has one, and every code, fob and phone has been tested in front of you.

Second Smart Lock Above a Bottom Lock

The most common Bronx request. Where the building owns the bottom lock — NYCHA, Parkchester and many private rentals — we add a smart deadbolt as the second lock, positioned in solid steel above the existing hardware, and leave the bottom lock exactly as the building installed it.

Retrofit Units on an Existing Thumb-Turn Deadbolt

Where a single-cylinder deadbolt is already on the door and belongs to you or your landlord allows it, a retrofit unit replaces only the inside thumb-turn. The hallway side and the existing key stay untouched, which matters in co-ops that keep corridor hardware uniform.

Steel and Hollow-Metal Door Preparation

Boring a clean 2-1/8-inch hole through a steel-skinned door without crushing the skin or hitting an internal stiffener takes the right cutters and a template. We check for fire labels, existing reinforcements and old holes first, and only cut where the door and the building allow it.

Street-Door and Vestibule Keypads

A keypad or fob reader with an electric strike on a walk-up's street door or a vestibule inner door, wired to a power supply and controller inside. On our published Bronx access-control page a single-door keypad or fob reader with electric strike is $1,500–$2,500 installed, Bronx pricing equal to the Brooklyn base.

Two-Family and Row-House Entry Plans

For owner-occupied homes with a rental unit: a smart lock on the owner's door, a key lock with a key for the tenant's door that can also take a code if the tenant wants one, and a separate credential for the shared front or side entrance.

Credential Setup for Families and Carers

Adult children managing a parent's door from another neighborhood, timed codes for a home health aide, a code for the super that the household can see in the log — set up and explained in person, not left in an app nobody opens.

Signal Planning for Concrete Towers

Getting a lock at the end of a Co-op City or Riverdale corridor online: bridge placement inside the unit, Thread border routers, and a test from mobile data on the street before we call it finished.

Shop Doors on Bronx Corridors

Keypad deadbolts and reader-and-strike sets for storefronts on Fordham Road, Third Avenue at the Hub, White Plains Road and East Tremont Avenue, set so staff codes can be cancelled the day someone leaves and exit never needs a key.

Repairs, Re-Pairing and Door Alignment

Strikes moved so a drooping steel door latches again, batteries and contacts cleaned, admin access recovered after a phone change, and locks re-joined to a new router after an internet-provider swap.

Finished black keypad smart deadbolt and handle on a wood brownstone front door after smart lock installation in the Bronx
A finished keypad deadbolt on a brownstone front door — keyless entry with a key backup.
Building Specialists

Smart Lock Installation for the Bronx's Architecture

The building decides two things before we ever look at the lock: who must keep a key, and what the door is made of. These are the building types we meet most often between Mott Haven and Wakefield, and what each one means for a smart lock.

NYCHA Developments

From Edenwald Houses, the borough's largest development with 40 buildings and 2,034 apartments, to the Patterson Houses in Mott Haven. The bottom lock is NYCHA's and stays. A resident-bought second lock is allowed, is the resident's responsibility, and can be broken by NYCHA in an emergency, so we fit one with a keyed cylinder and a door-friendly position.

Co-op City Towers

Concrete high-rises of 24 to 33 floors run by the Riverbay Corporation. Long corridors and concrete walls make signal planning the main technical question, and Riverbay's move-out restoration rule makes reversibility the main rules question: we keep the original hardware and fixings bagged and labeled for the day the unit changes hands.

Parkchester Condominiums

Red-brick buildings on a planned campus, now split into Parkchester North and South condominiums. Under Parkchester North's rules the bottom cylinder belongs to the condominium, a second cylinder can be added or changed, and every unit door key goes on file with the management office — so a second smart lock must keep a key that can be filed.

Grand Concourse Pre-War Buildings

The Art Deco and Art Moderne apartment houses of the Grand Concourse Historic District, most built between 1916 and 1941. Heavy steel-clad unit doors, mortise locks, deep backsets and frames out of square after a century of settling. Smart options are chosen around the mortise pocket and the closer.

Walk-Up Tenements and Six-Families

Five- and six-story walk-ups in Tremont, Morrisania, Highbridge and Belmont with private landlords. Tenants have the Multiple Dwelling Law right to add a lock; owners have the Housing Maintenance Code duty to provide one. The street door is often the owner's best keyless upgrade.

Riverdale Co-ops

Pre-war and post-war elevator co-ops along the Hudson side of the borough, with boards, managing agents and proprietary leases that expect a duplicate key or code for the corporation. Paperwork comes first: a certificate of insurance to the agent and a clear answer on whether the board wants to see the lock.

Two-Family Houses

Brick and frame two-families in Williamsbridge, Wakefield, Baychester, Morris Park and Pelham Bay, owner downstairs and tenant upstairs or the reverse. One owner, two dwelling units, a shared entrance and sometimes a basement door — each needs its own credential plan.

Attached and Row Houses

From the semi-detached row houses of the Longwood Historic District to attached brick homes in Throggs Neck and Country Club. Single-owner doors with simple rules, unless the house is landmarked or the front door is original, in which case historic fabric comes first.

Waterfront Co-op Bungalows

Edgewater Park and Silver Beach, where residents own their houses but the land is held by a cooperative. The house door is the owner's; salt air off Long Island Sound is the reason we look hard at finishes and battery compartments.

Door and lock details we check on every Bronx job

Whose lock is the bottom lock? Before anything else we establish who owns the lock that is already there. In public housing and in Parkchester the answer is written down: it belongs to the housing authority or the condominium. In a private rental it is the landlord's, and the Housing Maintenance Code says the owner of a dwelling provides a key lock and at least one key. In a co-op it depends on the proprietary lease and house rules. If the bottom lock is not yours, the smart lock is an addition, never a swap.

Where does a second bore go? Bronx apartment doors often carry the history of every lock they have ever had: a filled hole from a rim cylinder, a plate from a brace-bar police lock, screw holes from two generations of chain guards. A smart deadbolt needs its bore and its latch to land in solid material with enough edge distance, and it must clear the bottom lock's trim, the peephole and the chain guard. We map the old holes before choosing a height, and we use reinforcement plates where the steel skin has been weakened.

Is it a mortise door? A long rectangular faceplate on the door edge, with a cylinder screwed in above the lever, means a mortise lock. Most consumer smart deadbolts are designed for bored doors. On a pre-war mortise door the options are a separate smart deadbolt above the mortise lock where the door and building allow it, a mortise-format smart lock body, or a retrofit where a single-cylinder deadbolt already exists.

Does the door still close and latch by itself? We open the door to ninety degrees, let go and watch. If it stops short, bounces off the strike or needs a shoulder, the closer, hinges or frame need attention before any motorized bolt goes on. After Twin Parks the Bronx has every reason to treat this as the first test, not the last.

What is on the inside? HPD's fire-safety guidance says your apartment door must open from inside without a key and that double-cylinder locks on apartment doors are illegal. Every residential lock we fit has a thumb-turn or lever inside. We do not install code-to-exit or key-to-exit models on any Bronx home.

Most Bronx owners who modernize unit doors also look at the camera at the entrance. Our doorbell camera installation in the Bronx puts a picture behind every remote unlock.

AESS technician installing a keypad lever smart lock on an office suite door in the Bronx
Keypad lever lock on an interior office door — good for suites, supply rooms and server closets.
Who Holds the Key

The Bronx Keyholder Map: Who Controls Each Kind of Door

This table is the conversation we have on the phone before every Bronx apartment job. It does not replace your lease, your proprietary lease or your building's house rules, and it is not legal advice; it is a summary of the published rules we work to, so that the lock you choose does not start a dispute.

Where you liveWho owns the existing lockWhat you can usually addWho must be able to get inSource we work from
NYCHA apartmentNYCHA (the “bottom lock”)An additional lock you buy and maintain; the bottom lock staysNYCHA may break a tenant lock in an emergency; a keyed cylinder avoids a drill-outNYCHA Resident Handbook (2024)
Parkchester North condo unitThe condominium owns the bottom lockA second cylinder may be added or changedAll unit door keys filed with the management officeParkchester North Rules and Regulations (updated January 2009)
Co-op City apartmentShareholder's unit within Riverbay's cooperativeChanges that can be reversed on move-outRiverbay; outgoing shareholders restore the unit to original standardRiverbay Corporation FAQ
Private co-op (Riverdale, Concourse)Per proprietary lease and house rulesUsually a lock change with a duplicate key or code given to the corporationThe board and managing agentProprietary lease; co-op counsel commentary
Private rental apartmentThe owner, who must provide a key lock and at least one keyA tenant-installed lock up to three inches in circumference, in addition to the owner'sThe landlord or agent, with a duplicate key on requestMultiple Dwelling Law § 51-c; Housing Maintenance Code § 27-2043
Tenant unit in an owner's two-family houseThe ownerWhatever the lease allows; the owner must still supply a key lock and a keyTenant always; owner by agreementHousing Maintenance Code § 27-2043
Owner's own house or unitYouAny lock that opens from inside without a keyWhoever you chooseHPD fire-safety guidance on inside release

Two patterns come out of that table. First, in most Bronx housing the smart lock is the second lock on the door, not a replacement. That changes the hardware choice: we look for a smart deadbolt with a keyed cylinder that can sit above an existing lock on a steel door, rather than a retrofit that needs a deadbolt you do not own. Second, almost every row ends with somebody other than the occupant needing a way in. A smart lock with no key cylinder is the wrong product for most Bronx apartments, however convenient it looks in the store.

The Multiple Dwelling Law right to add a lock is real, but it is narrower than many renters assume. It covers an additional lock, separate from the owner's. It does not cover removing the owner's lock, and it does not apply in buildings supervised by a municipal housing authority, hotels, motels or dormitories. Any lease clause that charges extra rent or a fee for exercising the right is void under the same section. When a tenant tells us the landlord has objected, the first thing we check is whether the request was to add or to replace.

Exterior keypad and interior thumb-turn views of a smart deadbolt installed in the Bronx
Outside: keypad entry with a key override. Inside: a thumb-turn so nobody gets locked in.
Commercial Smart Locks

Business Smart Lock Installation in the Bronx

Bronx small businesses mostly trade from storefronts on busy shopping streets, very often with apartments above and a roll-down gate in front. The keyless question for a shop is the same everywhere: several people open and close at different hours, keys get copied, and an employee who leaves still has one. The Bronx twist is the shared building. A stair door beside the shop may serve the apartments upstairs, and the shop's credentials must never open it. The city's Department of Small Business Services lists twelve business improvement districts in the borough; these are the corridors where we see the most door work.

Fordham Road

The Fordham Road BID's strip, which the Norwood News described as 175 storefronts between Washington and Jerome Avenues, a few blocks from our own office. Retail with early opening shifts and high staff turnover: cancellable per-person codes on the rear service door matter more than app features.

The Hub, Third Avenue at 149th Street

The HUB Third Avenue BID, which describes the area as the Bronx's oldest commercial district. Older multi-story buildings with shops at grade and offices above mean a reader on a second-floor office door at the top of a shared stair is a typical request.

Arthur Avenue and Belmont

The Belmont BID's food-shopping streets around the Arthur Avenue Retail Market, open since October 1940. Bakeries, butchers and delis with deliveries before dawn want a keypad the morning crew can use and a log of who opened.

White Plains Road and Jerome-Gun Hill

BID-managed corridors under the elevated lines in the north Bronx. Narrow aluminum storefront doors usually call for a reader and electric strike rather than a residential deadbolt, with the keypad reachable once the gate is up.

Westchester Square and Throggs Neck

Two east Bronx BIDs with professional offices, medical practices and family businesses. Small offices often want two doors on one schedule — the street door and the suite door — without a full access-control system.

Southern Boulevard and 161st Street

From the BID along Southern Boulevard to the 161st Street district near the courthouse and Yankee Stadium. Mixed-use buildings dominate, so separating residential and commercial credentials is the first design decision.

Kingsbridge, Morris Park and Castle Hill complete the list of Bronx BIDs, with the same narrow storefronts and apartments overhead.

Compliance notes for Bronx business doors

  • Exit without a key. A keypad or reader on the outside is fine. On the inside, a public exit must release without a key, code or special knowledge. Where a door is electrified we add a push-to-exit button or a motion request-to-exit sensor so leaving never depends on a credential.
  • Fail-safe or fail-secure. An electric strike or magnetic lock either releases or stays locked when power fails. On a door in a required exit path the choice follows the building and fire codes; we specify it door by door and write it on the handover sheet.
  • Mixed-use stair doors. Where a storefront shares a building with apartments, the residential entrance is governed by the Multiple Dwelling Law and the Housing Maintenance Code. Shop staff codes go on the shop door only.
  • Roof doors. In class A multiple dwellings erected or converted after January 1, 1968, Multiple Dwelling Law § 50-a requires the roof door to be self-closing but not self-locking, fastened on the inside with a bolt, hook or lock that needs no key to open from inside. Owners above a shop sometimes ask us to put a keypad there; we explain why the inside must stay free.

For multi-door sites — schedules, elevator readers, central management — the job becomes full access control. Our commercial security camera installation in the Bronx often goes in alongside it so each door event has a camera view on the same timeline.

AESS technician connecting the ribbon cable on the interior unit of a keypad smart lock during installation in the Bronx
Seating the ribbon cable between the outside keypad and the inside unit — a loose connector is the top cause of dead keypads.
Your Questions Answered

Smart Lock Installation in the Bronx: Questions Answered

These are the questions Bronx callers actually put to us, sorted by the kind of building they live or work in: public housing and Mitchell-Lama co-ops, condo complexes, rent-stabilized buildings, pre-war walk-ups, building entrances, owner-occupied houses and shops. Pricing, scheduling and coverage questions are in the FAQ further down. Nothing here is legal advice; where we lean on a statute, a city code section or a building's published rules, we name it so you can read it yourself.

Public housing and Co-op City

NYCHA says the bottom lock stays — where does a smart lock fit on a public-housing door?

Above it, as a second lock. NYCHA's 2024 resident handbook says the front door of your apartment has been equipped with a lock it calls the bottom lock, that NYCHA does not allow tenants to replace that lock, and that you may buy an additional lock, which you are then responsible for installing, caring for and maintaining. That is a clear green light for an added smart deadbolt and a clear red light for any plan that takes the bottom lock out to make room.

Two further lines in the same handbook shape the hardware choice. Residents may not alter their apartments or add fixtures or fittings without prior written consent from the property management office, and NYCHA reserves the right to break a tenant-installed lock in an emergency. So we recommend asking the management office in writing before the visit, choosing a smart deadbolt with a keyed cylinder rather than a keypad-only model, and placing it where it clears the bottom lock's trim and the door's fire-safety sticker. Note that the Multiple Dwelling Law section that gives most New York tenants a right to add a lock specifically excludes housing-authority buildings; in public housing, NYCHA's own rules are the ones that count.

The door is also a self-closing fire door that NYCHA inspects periodically. Whatever we add has to leave it closing and latching by itself, and the handbook makes residents responsible for anything, even a doormat, that stops the closer working.

If NYCHA staff drill out a lock I added during a lockout, who puts it back?

You do. The handbook says that, at the lessee's request, NYCHA will drill out resident-installed locks but is not responsible for replacing them. It also explains the lockout charges for NYCHA's own lock: a work order during business hours and $47.25 on the resident's account for a new lock and keys, plus a $50 fee after hours, with special accommodation for seniors and disabled residents.

That is the strongest argument we know for keeping a mechanical key on any smart lock in public housing. If the batteries die or a phone is lost, a key in a trusted relative's pocket gets you in without a drill. We also set the lock's low-battery alerts to go to two phones in the household, and we show you the emergency power contacts some models have on the outside face, so a dead battery is an inconvenience rather than a drill-out and a replacement bill.

Does a Co-op City shareholder have to undo a smart lock when the apartment goes back to Riverbay?

Plan as if the answer is yes. Riverbay's published FAQ says outgoing shareholders are responsible for restoring their unit to its original standard, or Riverbay will deduct the cost of completing the restoration from their equity. A smart lock fitted through new holes in the door, or one that replaced original hardware, is the kind of change that can end up on that list.

So in Co-op City we work in a way that can be reversed cleanly. Where the existing hardware can host a retrofit, we use it and bag the original thumb-turn with its screws, labeled with the apartment number. Where a second lock is the only option, we confirm with the shareholder's Cooperator Service Office what the building permits before drilling, and we keep the template and hole size on the handover sheet so a future restoration can be quoted accurately.

Parkchester and condo complexes

Parkchester North won't let owners touch the bottom cylinder — what smart options are left?

More than people think. The Parkchester North Condominium's Rules and Regulations, updated January 2009, say unit owners or their tenants may not change the bottom lock cylinder because the bottom lock is the property of the condominium, but that a second lock cylinder may be added or changed, with all unit door keys filed with the management office. That leaves the second-lock position fully open for a smart deadbolt, as long as its key can be copied and filed.

In practice that means a keypad, fingerprint or app deadbolt with a standard keyed cylinder in the second position, a key handed to management, and a written note of the model for the owner's records. A keyless-only lock, or one with a proprietary key that cannot be duplicated locally, works against the filing rule. Parkchester South has its own condominium documents; if you are in a South building, send us the relevant page of the rules and we will work to it.

I rent my Parkchester apartment from an individual owner — who files the key for the second lock?

The paper trail has two links, and both need a key. Your landlord is the unit owner, who answers to the condominium's management office; you are the owner's tenant. The condominium rule speaks of unit owners or their tenants, so the filing obligation follows the door, whoever installs the lock. A second smart lock you add should come with one key for your landlord and one for the management office, or a single key to your landlord with their written confirmation that they will file it.

Because the building is a multiple dwelling and your landlord is a private owner rather than a housing authority, the Multiple Dwelling Law right to add a lock with a duplicate key on request also applies to you. Ask your landlord in writing first anyway. A one-line email naming the lock model and promising the keys avoids nearly every dispute we have seen.

Rent-stabilized buildings

If the building's front-door lock or buzzer breaks, can a rent-stabilized tenant ask the state for a rent cut?

Yes, that is one of the services the state treats as essential. New York State Homes and Community Renewal's Fact Sheet #14 on rent reductions for decreased services lists, among required services, maintenance of front or entrance door security, including but not limited to the lock and buzzer. Tenants in rent-regulated apartments can file a service complaint with the Office of Rent Administration when a required service is not maintained, and the agency can issue an order that reduces the rent and directs repairs.

For an owner, that is a good reason to treat a dead lobby strike or buzzer as urgent rather than routine. For a tenant, it is worth knowing that your own smart lock on your apartment door is separate from that building service: you maintain what you add, and the owner maintains the entrance. We repair entrance strikes and buzzers on the owner's instruction; a failed electric strike repair is $295–$485 on our published Bronx door-buzzer pages.

Pre-war walk-ups and steel doors

Our door still has an old brace-bar police lock — can it stay alongside a keypad deadbolt?

Usually, yes. A floor-braced bar lock is a surface-mounted lock with its own cylinder through the door, and many Bronx apartment doors still carry one from decades past. It does not stop a smart deadbolt being added, but it takes up space on the door face and its cylinder hole is often exactly where a smart lock's exterior keypad would want to sit. We map the police-lock cylinder, the bottom lock, the peephole and the chain guard before choosing a height that clears all four.

What we will not do is leave a household with more ways to lock themselves in than to get out. If the police lock needs a key from inside, or its bar is hard for an older resident to lift, we talk through whether it should stay. HPD's guidance is that your apartment door must open from inside without a key; every lock on the door, old or new, should meet that test.

After the Twin Parks fire, what will an HPD inspector check on my apartment door?

Whether it closes and latches by itself. Local Law 71 of 2022, passed after the Twin Parks fire, directed HPD to create a program to identify buildings at high risk of fire fatality and inspect their self-closing doors proactively. HPD's report to the City Council says it began those inspections in September 2023 in 300 multiple dwellings, inspected about 21,297 apartment and public-area doors through June 2024, and issued 3,151 self-closing door violations, 853 of them in 66 Bronx buildings. NYCHA's handbook describes the same test: opened and released, the door must swing shut and completely close and latch by itself.

A smart lock affects that test in one way: if its strike is slightly out of line, or its bolt drags on the frame, the closer cannot pull the door home. We set the latch so it catches on the closer's swing alone, confirm the deadbolt throws without the door being pushed, and leave the closer itself alone unless the owner asks us to adjust it.

Building entrances

Our six-family building's street door predates 1968 — does the law require it to self-lock at all?

Only if the tenants ask. Multiple Dwelling Law § 50-a requires automatic self-closing and self-locking entrance doors on class A multiple dwellings erected or converted after January 1, 1968. For buildings erected or converted before that date, the same section requires self-closing, self-locking doors and an intercom when tenants occupying a majority of the apartments request or consent in writing, on forms the department prescribes. Many owners of pre-1968 walk-ups have long since installed them anyway.

A keypad or fob reader on a street door is one way to meet that request, provided it is paired with a self-closing door and a strike that relocks every time. The same section makes it a misdemeanor for anyone to willfully damage, jam or interfere with that equipment, so a propped or taped strike is a problem for whoever did it, not only for the owner.

Can the roof door get a keypad so only the super can open it?

From the outside, yes; from the inside, no. In class A multiple dwellings erected or converted after January 1, 1968, Multiple Dwelling Law § 50-a says every entrance from the roof must have a self-closing door that is not self-locking and is fastened on the inside with movable bolts, hooks or a lock that does not require a key to open from inside the dwelling. The rule protects anyone using the stair to escape upward.

So any keypad on a roof door sits on the roof side and controls entry from the roof, while the stair side keeps a free-turning release. Owners worried about roof access from the stairs should look at an alarmed exit device or a door contact tied to an alert rather than a lock that traps people on the stair.

Can a keypad on the vestibule door replace the buzzer tenants use for visitors?

Add to it, not replace it. The same section of the Multiple Dwelling Law requires class A buildings erected or converted after January 1, 1968 with eight or more apartments to have an intercommunication system at the self-locking lobby door that lets each apartment talk to a visitor and release the door from the apartment. A keypad gives residents a keyless way in; it does not give a grandmother on the fourth floor a way to let her home health aide in.

Our usual Bronx design keeps the intercom, adds a keypad or fob reader on the same strike, and wires both through a controller so either can release the door. If the intercom itself is failing, our intercom repair crews in the Bronx bring it back before the keypad goes in.

Owner-occupied houses

I live downstairs and rent out the upstairs of our two-family — what does the law make me give my tenant?

A key lock and at least one key. Housing Maintenance Code § 27-2043 says the owner of a dwelling shall provide a key lock in the entrance door to each dwelling unit and at least one key. The extra requirements in that section — a heavy-duty latch set, a heavy-duty deadbolt with a thumb-turn inside, and a chain door guard — apply to class A multiple dwellings, which a two-family house is not. The peephole rule in § 27-2041 also has exceptions for two-family homes: it does not apply to owner-occupied units, and a tenant-occupied unit in a one- or two-family home needs none if a person outside can be seen from inside.

The practical design is a smart deadbolt with a keyed cylinder on the tenant's door, a key handed over at move-in, and the keypad or app features set up for the tenant if they want them. Your own door can be as keyless as you like, as long as it opens from inside without a key.

In Edgewater Park the land belongs to the co-op — does it get a say in my front-door lock?

Check your own community's rules; we have not seen a published lock rule there. Edgewater Park is a 60-acre waterside cooperative of 675 single-family homes in Throggs Neck, where residents own their houses and the cooperative holds the land. The house and its doors are generally the homeowner's to change, and smart locks there are usually a single-owner decision.

What does matter on that peninsula is weather. Houses close to Long Island Sound see salt air and wind-driven rain, so we favor locks with sealed exterior keypads and good finishes, keep the battery compartment on the inside, and check the door's weatherstripping so a motorized bolt is not fighting a swollen frame. The same applies in Silver Beach and on City Island.

Shops and mixed-use buildings

A Fordham Road shop shares a stair door with the apartments upstairs — whose code opens it?

The residents' and the owner's, not the shop staff's, unless the stair is also the shop's only route to a storeroom or exit. The residential entrance belongs to the multiple dwelling: its self-closing and self-locking duties come from the Multiple Dwelling Law, and its tenants' smart-access data is covered by the Tenant Data Privacy Act if an electronic system is used. Shop employees turn over often; giving them a code to the residents' hallway invites exactly the problem keyless entry is meant to solve.

Where the shop genuinely needs the stair, we put the shop on its own schedule, log its entries separately and keep its codes off the residential side outside business hours. On a building that combines shops and apartments, the owner usually wants one controller with two user groups, which a single-door keypad set can provide; a single-door keypad or fob reader with electric strike is $1,500–$2,500 installed in the Bronx.

AESS technician walking a customer through locking and unlocking her new smart lock from the app in the Bronx
Walking the owner through the app before we pack up — lock, unlock, codes and history.
Equipment

Types of Smart Locks We Install

In the Bronx the right lock is usually the one that can be the second lock on a steel door and still leave a key for somebody else. These are the categories we fit, with the building types each one suits. Buy your own and we will install it, or we will recommend a model at the walkthrough.

🔐
Keyed Keypad Deadbolts
Keypad outside, thumb-turn inside, standard keyed cylinder. Our default for NYCHA second locks, Parkchester second cylinders and tenant doors in two-family houses, because a key can be handed to management, the landlord or the condominium.
📱
Retrofit Interior Units
Mount over an existing single-cylinder deadbolt on the inside only, so the corridor face and existing key are unchanged. Ideal in co-ops with uniform hallway hardware and for renters who may move.
👆
Fingerprint Deadbolts
Useful in multigenerational households where codes get shared around the family, and for older residents who struggle with small keypad buttons; always with a key backup.
🏛
Mortise-Format Smart Locks
Smart lock bodies built for a mortise pocket, for owners of Grand Concourse and Riverdale pre-war doors who want keyless entry without adding a second lock to a heavy door.
📡
Matter-over-Thread Locks
Join a low-power mesh through a Thread border router and can be shared across smart-home apps. Helpful in concrete towers where Wi-Fi at the door is weak but a border router can sit near the entrance.
📶
Wi-Fi Locks and Plug-In Bridges
For remote unlocking and alerts. The bridge goes on your side of the door; August, for instance, asks for its Connect bridge within 10 to 15 feet of the lock with full Wi-Fi bars where it sits.
🚪
Reader-and-Strike Sets
Keypad or fob reader on the wall, electric strike in the frame, power supply and controller inside. For walk-up street doors, vestibules, shop doors and office suites.
🟢
Exit Buttons and Sensors
Push-to-exit buttons and motion request-to-exit sensors that release an electrified door from inside so nobody needs a credential to leave.
📞
Intercom Entry Panels With Keypads
Lobby panels that combine call buttons, a camera and a keypad on one strike, for buildings that must keep an intercom and want codes as well.

Big-box brands versus a Bronx installer. A national retailer sells the box and the app. It does not know that NYCHA keeps the bottom lock, that Parkchester North files every unit key, that Riverbay wants the unit back in original condition, or that a post-1968 roof door must open from inside without a key. An installer who works these buildings every week can tell you which lock fits the rules before you buy it, and answers to you afterwards from an office on Fordham Road.

AI Overview Reality Check

What AI Gets Wrong About Smart Lock Installation in the Bronx

How we wrote this section: Google's AI Overview could not be opened from the research tools used for this page, so nothing below claims to quote it. Each heading is a claim that national cost guides, retailers and general how-to articles publish and that answer engines tend to repeat. Under each one is what changes when the door is in a Bronx building.

“Swapping your deadbolt for a smart lock is a simple weekend job”

On a wood door in a single-family house with a standard bored deadbolt, that is fair. Retrofit units and like-for-like smart deadbolts are designed for exactly that door, and a handy owner can fit one with a screwdriver.

In much of the Bronx, the deadbolt is not yours to swap. NYCHA does not allow tenants to replace the bottom lock. Parkchester North says owners and tenants may not change the bottom cylinder. A private landlord owns the lock the Housing Maintenance Code makes them provide. The “swap” in the headline is often the one step the rules forbid.

The correct Bronx version of the job is usually an addition: a second, keyed smart deadbolt on a steel door, positioned around the existing hardware. That is not a weekend screwdriver job, and it is where a licensed installer earns the fee.

“Tenants have a legal right to install their own locks”

Partly true in New York, and the details matter. Multiple Dwelling Law § 51-c gives tenants of multiple dwellings the right to install and maintain their own lock, separate from the owner's, no larger than three inches in circumference, with a duplicate key to the landlord on request.

The same sentence excludes buildings under the supervision and control of a municipal housing authority, and that is a large share of Bronx apartments. NYCHA residents get a parallel permission from the housing authority's own handbook instead, with its own conditions: buy and maintain the extra lock yourself, and accept that NYCHA may break it in an emergency.

So a general answer that tenants can add a lock is roughly right for a Concourse walk-up and incomplete for Edenwald. Know which rulebook covers your door before you buy.

“Smart lock installation costs around $330”

LawnStarter's national cost guide puts the average at $330, with a typical range of $200 to $460 and labor of $50 to $110. As a national figure for a standard deadbolt on a standard door, it is a reasonable reference.

It does not price a new 2-1/8-inch bore through a steel-skinned apartment door, a reinforcement plate over a door already peppered with old holes, a fifth-floor walk-up, or the time spent confirming what a co-op board or condominium management office will accept.

That is why we quote apartment-door smart locks flat after seeing the door, and price street-door keypads from the Bronx access-control figures already published on this site: $1,500 to $2,500 for a single-door keypad or fob reader with electric strike, with Bronx pricing equal to the Brooklyn base.

“Going keyless means nobody needs a key anymore”

Retail marketing presents a keyless door as the end of copied keys. For a homeowner who controls every door, it can be.

In Bronx housing, almost every published rule assumes somebody else keeps a way in. Parkchester North requires all unit door keys to be filed with management. Proprietary leases in New York co-ops commonly require a shareholder who changes a lock to give the corporation a duplicate, and co-op lawyers note that the obligation can extend to combination codes. The Multiple Dwelling Law gives a landlord a duplicate key on request.

The Bronx-ready version of keyless is a smart lock with a keyed cylinder: convenient for the household, and still compliant with whoever is entitled to a key.

“A double-locking door is the safest door”

Some security articles still recommend locks that need a key on both sides, on the theory that a burglar who breaks a sidelight cannot reach in and turn the thumb-turn.

HPD's fire-safety guidance says it is illegal to install double-cylinder locks on apartment doors because they can trap residents inside during a fire, and that your apartment door must open from inside without a key. In post-1968 class A buildings, the Multiple Dwelling Law also says the roof door must open from inside without a key. The Bronx learned in January 2022 how fast smoke moves when doors fail.

Our rule is simple: every residential door we touch opens from inside with a thumb-turn or lever. Security comes from a strong strike, a reinforced door and a lock that cannot be shimmed, not from locking people in.

“The building's front door isn't part of a smart lock plan”

Most smart-lock advice stops at your own front door, because most of it is written for houses.

In a Bronx walk-up, the street door is often the weakest link and the owner's legal responsibility. The Multiple Dwelling Law sets the rules for self-closing, self-locking entrance doors and intercoms, and the state's rent agency counts front or entrance door security, including the lock and buzzer, as a required service in rent-regulated buildings. A perfect smart lock on the apartment door does little if the vestibule strike has been propped open for a month.

For owners, the better first project is often the street door: a keypad or fob reader with a strike that relocks every time, wired alongside the intercom. For tenants, reporting a broken entrance lock is the first step, before any smart lock upstairs.

“Any smart lock will connect fine to home Wi-Fi”

Product pages show a lock and a router in the same bright room, a few feet apart.

Bronx apartment doors sit at the end of hallways in masonry and concrete buildings whose median multifamily age was 87 years back in 2014, beside public corridors full of neighbors' networks. Lock radios are low-power by design. A lock that works perfectly by Bluetooth at the door can fail the moment you try to open it from work.

We test from the door before choosing between Bluetooth alone, a plug-in bridge, Wi-Fi built into the lock or Matter over Thread, and we finish every install by locking and unlocking from mobile data out on the street.

AESS technician installing a keypad smart deadbolt on a suburban home front door with the AESS van outside in the Bronx
Single-family front door, keypad deadbolt going in — one visit, about an hour on a standard door.

A Smart Lock That Respects Every Keyholder on Your Door

Tell us the building and who holds keys today. We will tell you which lock your rules allow, who needs a key afterwards, and what it costs.

Get In Touch

Request a Free Quote

NYCHA, Co-op City, Parkchester, a private rental, a two-family house or a shop — tell us the building and what is on the door now, and a written answer comes back the same business day. Rather talk it through? Call (646) 490-0629.

✅

Request Received

Expect a call from a Bronx installer today or the next business day. Door stuck or lock dead right now? Dial (646) 490-0629.

How It Works

Our Installation Process

Six steps, whether the door is a NYCHA apartment in Soundview, a Parkchester condo or the street door of a six-family in Tremont.

1
1. Photos and the keyholder question
You send photos of both sides of the door and its edge and tell us who owns the building. We work out which rulebook applies, whether housing authority, condominium, co-op, landlord or your own, before suggesting any lock.
2
2. Permission in one sentence
We give you the exact question to put to management, the board or your landlord, and send a certificate of insurance to any managing agent who asks for one, so nothing stalls on the day.
3
3. Free walkthrough and a flat price
At the door we map existing locks and old holes, check the steel, the closer and the signal, and give you a flat written price. Street-door work is priced from our published Bronx access-control figures.
4
4. Door set to latch on its own
Before any new hardware, the strike and closer are adjusted so the door swings shut and latches by itself; then we bore and reinforce only where the door and the rules allow it.
5
5. Install, pair and test from the street
The lock is fitted, inside release is checked for one simple motion without a key, and the bridge or border router is placed indoors; we lock and unlock from mobile data outside the building.
6
6. Codes, keys and a handover card
Codes, fingerprints and phones are enrolled with you, admin access goes on two devices, keys go to whoever the building rules name, and a card inside the door lists who holds what.
Coverage Area

Smart Lock Installation Near the Bronx's Landmarks

Six places that between them hold most of the door rules on this page: a Mitchell-Lama cooperative, a condominium campus, a historic boulevard, a landmarked row-house district, a waterside co-op of houses and an island at the end of a causeway.

Co-op City

Built from 1966 and completed in 1973 on the former Freedomland site between I-95 and the Hutchinson River Parkway: 35 towers of 24 to 33 floors plus seven townhouse clusters, 15,372 apartments, governed by the Riverbay Corporation's board. Concrete corridors and move-out restoration rules make it a reversible-install neighborhood.

Co-op City access control →

Parkchester

MetLife's planned community announced in 1938, laid out on a 129-acre site with only 27 percent built on: 171 red-brick buildings and 12,271 apartments, now Parkchester North and South condominiums. The condominium owns the bottom lock; the second lock is where smart hardware goes.

Parkchester access control →

Grand Concourse Historic District

Designated on October 25, 2011 for its concentration of Art Deco and Art Moderne apartment buildings, most built between 1916 and 1941. Heavy steel-clad unit doors, mortise locks and a century of settling in the frames.

Concourse access control →

Longwood Historic District

Semi-detached row houses designated a historic district by the Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1980 and extended in 1983. Original front doors and their surrounds are historic fabric; keypads usually belong on the inside or on a secondary door.

Longwood access control →

Edgewater Park, Throggs Neck

A 60-acre waterside cooperative of 675 single-family homes near the Throgs Neck Bridge, a co-op since 1988, where residents own their houses and the land is held in common. Owner-controlled doors, salt air off Long Island Sound.

Edgewater Park access control →

City Island

An island about 1.5 miles long and half a mile wide with 4,417 residents at the 2020 census, reached by the City Island Causeway Bridge that opened on October 29, 2017. Houses, small marinas and shops along City Island Avenue, and a long drive for any locksmith who isn't already in the Bronx.

City Island access control →

We also install smart locks in Mott Haven, Port Morris, Melrose, Morrisania, Hunts Point, Longwood, Highbridge, Concourse Village, Fordham, Belmont, Tremont, University Heights, Kingsbridge, Riverdale, Fieldston, Norwood, Bedford Park, Soundview, Castle Hill, Clason Point, Unionport, Parkchester, Westchester Square, Pelham Bay, Country Club, Throggs Neck, Silver Beach, Morris Park, Pelham Parkway, Allerton, Williamsbridge, Wakefield, Baychester, Eastchester and Edenwald, plus Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island, Long Island and the Hudson Valley.

AESS technician showing a homeowner a fingerprint unlock on a new smart lock with the app confirming access in the Bronx
Enrolling and testing a fingerprint with the owner — the app logs every unlock.
Pricing

Smart Lock Installation Cost in the Bronx

The Bronx carries no area surcharge: our published Bronx prices equal the Brooklyn base. Below is every figure we have actually published that applies to keyless doors, with its scope and where it comes from. An individual apartment-door smart lock has no published AESS price, because the door decides the work — a retrofit on an existing deadbolt and a second lock bored through a steel door with a reinforcement plate are different jobs. Those are quoted flat, in writing, after a free walkthrough, and the quote is the bill.

ItemBronx priceScope and source
Your own unit or house: keyed second deadbolt, retrofit, or mortise-body conversionQuoted flat at free walkthroughNothing published for this line yet: the figure depends on the steel, the old holes and what the building permits, so it is written up once we have stood at the door
Single-door keypad or fob reader with electric strike$1,500–$2,500 installedListed as the “single door” figure on our Bronx access-control page for a walk-up entrance, vestibule, shop or office suite; Bronx equals the Brooklyn base
New electric strike on a lobby door$250–$450Bronx door-buzzer pages list this line for a replacement strike fitted during a building entry upgrade
Failed electric strike repair$295–$485Bronx door-buzzer repair pages list this for an entrance that hums when buzzed but stays shut
Setup-only visit (app, bridge, codes, no hardware change)$225 first hour, then 30-minute blocksBronx rate for visits that only touch apps, bridges and codes
Service and callback rate$195/hr, 3-hour minimum ($585)Applies to later service calls, never to the original install visit

What moves a Bronx apartment-door quote up or down

  • Addition or retrofit: a retrofit on a deadbolt you are allowed to use is the lightest job. A second lock through a steel door is more work, and more again if the door has old holes that need a reinforcement plate.
  • Door material and age: hollow-metal and steel-clad doors take slower cutting than wood; a door with a fire label may need the building's sign-off before preparation.
  • Clearances: fitting around a bottom lock, a police-lock cylinder, a peephole and a chain guard can limit where the new lock goes and which models suit.
  • Closer and alignment: a door that no longer latches on its own needs its strike or closer set before a motorized bolt goes on.
  • Credentials: one household's codes are quick; a two-family house with separate codes for each unit and the shared door takes longer.

Costs that belong to the building, not to us

Some charges Bronx residents ask about are not AESS prices at all. NYCHA's resident handbook lists a $47.25 charge to the resident's account for a new NYCHA lock and keys after a daytime lockout drill-out, and a further $50 after hours. Co-op City's Riverbay deducts restoration costs from an outgoing shareholder's equity. Condo management offices may charge for key copies. We mention these so you can budget for the whole picture; none of them are on our invoice.

National cost guides for comparison. LawnStarter's national guide puts smart lock installation at an average of $330, with most jobs between $200 and $460 and labor of $50 to $110. That is national third-party data for an ordinary door, not an AESS price.

Full terms — including 50% deposit, one-year parts-only warranty on AESS-supplied products, and the late-fee schedule — are set out in the service agreement. Locks you buy yourself carry their manufacturer's warranty.

AESS technician programming a new user access code in the smart lock app at the front door in the Bronx
Adding user codes in the app at the door, so every code is tested before we leave.
Shop Our Systems

Smart Lock Installation Packages & Pricing

Three ways most Bronx keyless jobs come together. The two building-door packages carry published Bronx prices; the apartment-door package is quoted at the walkthrough because no two Bronx doors carry the same history of holes.

STARTER · YOUR APARTMENT DOOR
Quoted flat at walkthrough
A keyed smart deadbolt as the second lock above a bottom lock you keep, a retrofit on a deadbolt you may use, or a mortise-format lock for a pre-war owner. Old holes mapped, reinforcement fitted where needed, closer checked so the door latches on its own, inside release confirmed, codes and app set up, and keys accounted for — one to the landlord, management office or corporation where the rules require it.
STANDARD · NEW ENTRANCE STRIKE
$250–$450
A new electric strike on the building's street or vestibule door as part of an entry upgrade, at the figure published on our Bronx door-buzzer pages. If the existing strike has failed rather than needing replacement, the repair line is $295–$485. Either way the door is left self-closing and relocking.
PREMIUM · KEYLESS STREET DOOR
$1,500–$2,500
Single-door keypad or fob reader with electric strike, installed at Bronx pricing with no surcharge. Per-person credentials, exit release inside, the intercom kept working alongside it, and the owner shown how to add and remove users and pull an entry log.
Bring your own lock — labor only. Already bought a smart lock? We install it, quoted flat at the walkthrough as labor only. Before the box is opened we check it against the door and the rules: will it fit as a second lock above your bottom lock, does it have a keyed cylinder if your building files keys, does it suit a steel door's thickness and backset, and does it open from inside without a key or code. A lock you supply carries its manufacturer's warranty rather than ours. If it is the wrong lock for your building, you hear that before anything is drilled, while it can still go back to the store.

Ready to Add a Smart Lock the Right Way?

Send a photo of the inside of the door and its edge, and tell us who owns the building. We will tell you which lock position is open to you and what the walkthrough will cover.

Street Door or Apartment Door

Building-Entry Smart Locks Versus Apartment-Door Smart Locks

In a Bronx walk-up there are usually two locked doors between the sidewalk and your kitchen, and they are governed by different people under different rules. Getting them confused is the most common reason a keyless project stalls. Here is how they differ in practice.

Street or vestibule doorYour apartment door
Who decidesThe building owner or co-op/condo boardDepends on the building: housing authority, condominium, corporation, landlord or you
Main rulesMultiple Dwelling Law § 50-a self-closing, self-locking doors and intercoms; HCR treats entrance lock and buzzer as a required service in regulated buildingsHousing Maintenance Code § 27-2043 key lock; MDL § 51-c tenant’s added lock; HPD inside-release guidance; building rules
Typical hardwareKeypad or fob reader, electric strike, power supply, controller, intercomBattery-powered smart deadbolt, retrofit unit or mortise-format lock
Data rulesTenant Data Privacy Act applies when an owner uses fobs, apps or biometricsYour own lock's app is your data; an owner-installed smart unit lock falls under the same Act
PowerWired low voltage, with a fail-safe or fail-secure choiceBatteries, with low-battery alerts and an emergency key or power contact
Published Bronx price$1,500–$2,500 single door; strike $250–$450; strike repair $295–$485Quoted flat at walkthrough

For tenants, the lesson is that the street door is the owner's to fix, and a broken entrance lock is worth reporting before investing in your own door. For owners of two- to twenty-unit buildings, the street door is usually the best keyless investment: it controls who reaches every apartment door, it replaces a ring of copied street keys, and it can be wired alongside the intercom the law already requires in many buildings. Unit doors can follow later, one tenant at a time, with consent and a key.

Owners planning both should run one cable route and one controller location from the start. Our structured cabling installation in the Bronx and the AESS network installation team can lay the backbone so a cloud-managed controller does not rely on a tenant's Wi-Fi.

AESS technician checking latch and bolt alignment at the door edge during a smart lock installation in the Bronx
Checking bolt throw and strike alignment — a bolt that binds drains batteries and jams motors.
Two-Family & Row Houses

A Smart Lock Plan for Owner-Occupied Two-Family and Row Houses

Owners of Bronx two-families and attached houses control every door, which makes the rules simpler and the design choices more personal. This is the plan we walk through with owners in Williamsbridge, Wakefield, Morris Park, Pelham Bay, Country Club and Throggs Neck.

  • Your own door. Fully keyless is fine if it opens from inside without a key. Most owners still keep a keyed cylinder for the day the batteries die, and a fingerprint reader is popular where several generations share the house.
  • The tenant's door. Housing Maintenance Code § 27-2043 says the owner of a dwelling provides a key lock in each dwelling unit's entrance door and at least one key. A smart deadbolt with a keyed cylinder does both; the keypad and app are extras the tenant can choose to use.
  • The shared front or side door. Separate codes for each household, so one can be changed without disturbing the other. If the tenant leaves, their shared-door code goes on the day possession lawfully returns, not before.
  • The basement or yard door. Often the forgotten one. A keyed smart deadbolt here lets the owner give a plumber or boiler technician a code that expires at five o'clock.
  • The peephole. Housing Maintenance Code § 27-2041 exempts owner-occupied units in one- and two-family homes, and a tenant unit in such a home needs no peephole if a visitor can be seen from inside. A doorbell camera often answers the same need better.
  • Landmarked fronts. In the Longwood Historic District and other landmarked blocks, the Landmarks Preservation Commission's 2025 Permit Guidebook says that where a door is original or historic, the door, sidelights, transom, framing and surround detailing must be retained. Keep the historic street door as it is and put keyless convenience on the inside, on a retrofit over an existing deadbolt, or on a secondary door, unless LPC staff have approved an exterior change.

Owners who want lights, thermostats and locks on one schedule can tie the lock into a wider system through our home automation installation in the Bronx, and an alarm panel that arms when the last person locks up through our alarm installation service.

AESS technician mounting a video doorbell beside a newly installed keypad smart lock in the Bronx
Video doorbell and smart lock at the same visit — see who is there, then let them in.
Families & Carers

Setting Up Codes for Parents, Home Aides and the Super

Many of our Bronx smart-lock calls come from adult children, not from the person who lives behind the door. A parent in Co-op City or Parkchester has an aide who comes four mornings a week, a grandson who checks in on weekends and a super who needs to get in when the radiator leaks. A smart lock can make that household easier to run, or more confusing, depending on how it is set up.

WhoWhat we set upWhy
The residentA short, memorable code; fingerprint if buttons are hard to read; a physical key kept as backupThe person who lives there should never be locked out by the technology meant to help them
Family managersAdmin access on two family phones; low-battery and door-left-unlocked alertsA dead battery is noticed from Pelham Bay or Yonkers before it becomes a lockout
Home health aideA personal code limited to visiting days and hoursThe log shows arrivals and departures, and the code stops working outside the schedule
Super or managementA key where the building files keys; optionally a code the family can see used in the logMeets building rules and keeps emergency access
ContractorsOne-time or same-day codesNobody keeps a working code after the job

We leave a printed card inside the door listing who holds which code and how to delete one, and we walk the family manager through deleting and re-adding a user before we leave. When a parent's needs change, a setup-only visit to re-plan the codes is $225 for the first hour in the Bronx, then 30-minute blocks.

AESS technician removing an old brass deadbolt with a drill to prepare the door for a smart lock in the Bronx
Old brass deadbolt coming out — the first step of a smart lock swap on a wood entry door.
Complete Services

Every Smart Lock Installation Service in the Bronx

A new lock is often part of something bigger: a building entry upgrade, a family moving a parent in, or a shop opening on Fordham Road. These Bronx services usually come along on the same visit.

Access Control Installation Bronx

Fob readers, keypads and controllers for street doors, vestibules, offices and multi-door buildings.

Abstract Enterprises Intercom Installation

New talk-and-release panels, video or audio, for walk-ups, elevator buildings and two-family houses across the borough.

Intercom Repair in the Bronx

Dead stations, failed releases and riser faults on existing building intercoms.

Door Buzzer Repair

Neighborhood-by-neighborhood repair pages for lobby releases and call buttons that have quit.

Doorbell Camera Installation Bronx

See the caller on your phone first, then decide whether to buzz them in or unlock from work.

AESS Commercial Cameras in the Bronx

Storefront and lobby cameras that sit on the same timeline as door events.

Low-Voltage Installation Bronx

Entry, data, camera and audio wiring under one NYS low-voltage license.

All Services

The full list of systems we fit and fix, from cameras to cabling.

Get a Quote

Send one request covering the lock and anything else on this list.

Field Notes

Field Notes on Bronx Apartment Doors

How our installers read a Bronx door before choosing a lock — working practice across many doors, not the story of one job

We start in the hallway, not at the lock. Whose name is on the sticker inside the door, is there a fire-safety notice, does the corridor hardware match the neighbors'? That tells us whether we are in public housing, a condominium, a co-op or a private rental before anyone says so, and which rulebook we are working under.

Then we count holes. A typical older Bronx apartment door has the bottom lock, a peephole, a chain guard and the ghosts of two or three earlier locks: a filled rim-cylinder hole, the screw pattern of a police-lock plate, a patched latch pocket. The new lock has to land in solid steel with enough room around it, and its outside keypad has to clear the bottom lock's trim. Sometimes the best position is a few inches higher than the customer pictured.

Next comes the swing test. We open the door to ninety degrees and let go. If it does not close and latch by itself, nothing else happens until it does, because a smart lock on a door that won't latch is a self-closing violation waiting for an inspector.

Last, the phone. We stand at the door on the building's Wi-Fi, then on mobile data, and only then choose between Bluetooth, a bridge or Thread. And before we pack up, a key goes to whoever the building rules say must have one.

FAQ

Bronx Smart Lock Installation FAQ

Is Bronx pricing for keyless entry the same as Brooklyn pricing?
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Yes. Our area multipliers put the Bronx at the same 1.00 base as Brooklyn, so the published figures apply unchanged: a single-door keypad or fob reader with electric strike is $1,500 to $2,500 installed, a new lobby electric strike is $250 to $450 and a failed strike repair is $295 to $485. Apartment-door smart locks are quoted flat after a free walkthrough.

Do I have to buy the smart lock myself, or can you supply one?
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Either works. We can supply the model we recommend at the walkthrough, chosen to suit your door and your building rules, or install one you have already bought as labor only. A lock we supply is covered by the parts terms in our service agreement; a lock you buy carries its manufacturer's warranty.

Do you work for Bronx property managers looking after several buildings at once?
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Yes. We can survey the street doors and vestibules across a portfolio in one visit, price each from our published Bronx figures, and schedule the installs building by building so every entrance keeps a working intercom and a door that relocks while the work is done.

Will you meet the super at the door so he can see the bottom lock is left alone?
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Gladly. Many Bronx buildings like the super or the management office to see the door before and after the work. Give us the super's number when you book and we will arrange the arrival window with him, show him the second-lock position and hand over any key the building files.

Can the keypad go at a height a wheelchair user can reach?
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Yes. As a guide we use the 2010 ADA Standards for door hardware, which call for operable parts between 34 and 48 inches above the floor that do not need tight grasping, pinching or twisting of the wrist, and we favor lever trim and large keypad buttons. NYCHA residents who need a change to their apartment for a disability can also ask NYCHA about reasonable accommodation.

Can the visit be on a Sunday or in the evening after work?
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Yes. We book 2-hour arrival windows seven days a week between 8 AM and 8 PM. If your building limits contractor hours, tell us when you book and we will pick a window inside them.

Will you drill a NYCHA or co-op door before the building has said yes?
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Not a public-housing door. NYCHA's handbook requires prior written consent from the property management office for alterations, so we ask to see that consent before we bore a second lock. For condos and co-ops we will tell you what the published rules say and recommend getting the answer in writing; if the building says no, we suggest an option that needs no new holes.

Can the smart lock work with a doorbell camera so I see who I am letting in?
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Yes. Many smart locks and video doorbells can be set up so the doorbell alert and the unlock button sit in the same app or on the same smart display. We install the camera where the building allows, usually on a house door or inside a private vestibule, and test that a remote unlock follows a live view.

Can one key open both my new smart lock and the bottom lock?
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In a house you own, often yes: many smart deadbolts take a standard cylinder that a locksmith can key to match your other locks. Where the building owns the bottom lock, as NYCHA and Parkchester North do, its cylinder is not yours to re-key, so expect two keys.

Is there an extra charge for a fifth-floor walk-up?
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Not as a separate line. Stairs, door material and building logistics are included when we set the flat price for an apartment-door smart lock at the walkthrough, so the figure you are given already reflects a walk-up.

AESS technician measuring the door bore with a tape measure before a smart lock installation in the Bronx
Measuring the bore and backset first, so the new smart deadbolt fits the existing door without re-drilling.
All Areas Served

Smart Lock Installation Across New York City and Beyond

This is the Bronx page of our smart lock service. The NYC smart lock installation hub covers the rules every borough shares; Staten Island and Nassau County have their own pages written for one- and two-family houses; and the Long Island and Hudson Valley hubs cover suburban houses and county rules. Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens pages are on the way, and until then those links open our quote form.

Our warranty terms and the story about our company are a click away, and every other service starts at the Abstract Enterprises Security Systems home page.

AESS technician replacing the batteries in a smart lock interior unit during a service visit in the Bronx
Fresh batteries and a check of the motor — the fix for most locks that start acting up.

Bronx Lockout With a Smart Lock: Call Before Anyone Drills

If the keypad is blank, the bolt will not throw, the app has lost the lock or the vestibule strike has stopped releasing, call (646) 490-0629. We book the next open 2-hour window from our Fordham Road office, and most battery, pairing and alignment faults are fixed in one to two hours once we are at the door. In public housing, try your mechanical key or a relative's spare before asking for a drill-out; NYCHA will drill a resident-installed lock on request but will not replace it.

AESS technician testing a keypad smart lock on an apartment unit door with the mobile app in the Bronx
Apartment unit door, tested from the keypad and the app — handy for owners renting out units.

Smart Lock Installation Bronx — Licensed, Insured, Rules-First

Abstract Enterprises Security Systems · 460 E Fordham Rd, Bronx, NY 10458 · (646) 490-0629 · WhatsApp (718) 679-0359 via wa.me

Rated 4.7★ from 201 Google Reviews · Same-Day Estimates · 100% Licensed & Insured under NYS Low-Voltage License #12000287431

Full terms — including 50% deposit, one-year parts-only warranty on AESS-supplied products, and the late-fee schedule — are set out in the service agreement. See our warranty page.

Statutes, city code sections and building rules are summarized here so you know which questions to ask; for advice on your own lease or proprietary lease, speak to a lawyer. Reviewed and updated October 17, 2026. Changelog: Bronx smart lock page first published.