These are the questions Rockland families, congregations and business owners ask us before a keyless lock goes on a door, grouped by situation: observant households, large families, the doors that raised ranches and split-levels actually have, rented rooms and accessory apartments, community buildings, and shops. Price, scheduling and coverage questions are in the FAQ further down. Where Jewish law comes into it, we describe the hardware and point you to the published guidance; the decision about what your household or congregation uses on Shabbat belongs to you and your rabbi, not to a lock installer. Nothing here is legal advice either.
Observant households and Shabbat
We keep Shabbat — what kind of lock lets the family get in and out from Friday evening until Saturday night?
One that involves no electricity at all on the door you use that day. Chabad.org's guide to doors on Shabbat says there is generally no issue with an old-fashioned lock and key, or with combination locks that are entirely mechanical, while doors that open with electronic key cards, fobs or keypads may not be used. That leaves two practical choices for the Shabbat door: a conventional keyed deadbolt, used with a key that can be carried in a permitted way, or a mechanical push-button deadbolt whose combination works through springs and tumblers rather than circuits. Several manufacturers sell battery-free push-button deadbolts; some online listings even put "Sabbath" in the product name.
For most Rockland families the answer is a split plan rather than one lock for everything. The door you use on Shabbat — usually the front door, because guests and the walk to shul both start there — gets the mechanical keypad or a plain keyed deadbolt. The garage-to-house door or side door, which the family uses during the week with cars, groceries and car seats, gets the electronic smart lock with codes, fingerprints and the app. A 2017 article by an Orthodox home-automation installer reached the same conclusion: he put his electronic smart lock on the garage entrance precisely because he doesn't use the garage on Shabbat.
Whatever goes on the Shabbat door, the inside still opens with one plain turn of a lever or thumb-turn, so getting out never involves a code, a key or a decision. We test that with you before we leave, and we label which door is which on the instruction sheet so a babysitter or a guest isn't confused on Friday night.
Our smart lock auto-locks and logs every opening — can those features be switched off for Shabbat and Yom Tov without removing the lock?
Usually some of them, but rarely all of them in one tap, and that is the problem. Chabad.org notes that some smart locks lock themselves after a set time, which creates an electrical action, and that even with auto-lock turned off most smart locks record every use and send a signal to the app whenever the door is locked or unlocked — including when it's turned by hand from inside. Its practical advice is that, ideally, smart locks should be disabled before Shabbat. The Orthodox installer who tested a popular keypad deadbolt in 2017 found the same two issues, the 30-second auto-lock timer and the activity log, and wrote that a "Shabbat mode" would be a game changer. We have not found a mainstream residential smart lock that offers one.
What can be done in practice depends on the model. Auto-lock can be switched off in the app or on the lock on most models, and switched back on after Havdalah. Logging is harder; on many locks the only certain way to stop the electronics is to cut their power. On some models that means sliding the battery pack out or flipping a battery-compartment connector, which takes seconds once you know where it is; on others it means removing the batteries entirely. We show you exactly how on your lock, note it on the instruction sheet, and if the lock makes this awkward we tell you before you buy it.
The other option is to stop fighting the electronics. Put the smart lock on a door you don't use on Shabbat, and give the Shabbat door hardware that has nothing to switch off. Families who host every week often find that easier than remembering a battery routine every Friday at candle-lighting, and it means a guest who arrives on Shabbat afternoon never touches anything electronic.
Will a keypad deadbolt or a reader on the frame crowd the mezuzah on our doorpost?
Not usually, but it is worth checking before anything is drilled. Published guidance places the mezuzah on the right-hand doorpost as you enter, in the lower part of the upper third of the post — the Chicago Mitzvah Campaign's FAQ adds that it shouldn't be higher than four inches below the lintel, and Chabad.org says that on a very tall doorway it goes at shoulder height. A residential deadbolt or a keypad on the door itself sits much lower, typically a few inches above the handle, so on most front doors the two never meet.
Where they can come close is on the frame. If the door is hinged on the left as you walk in, the latch and strike are on the right-hand post — the same post as the mezuzah. Long strike-reinforcement screws, a door-position sensor, or a cable run up to an electric strike or a frame-mounted reader can all end up in that post. We look at the mezuzah's position at the walkthrough, keep our drilling and cable routes clear of it, and mount any reader on the wall or the opposite side of the frame if the post is crowded.
If frame work genuinely requires the mezuzah to come down — say a rotted post has to be replaced — we tell you first and leave its removal and re-affixing to you, because how and when it goes back up is a question for your family and your rabbi, not for us. We never cover, drill through or re-fix a mezuzah ourselves.
Large households
With ten or more people living in the house, how many codes can a smart lock hold, and how do we keep them straight?
More than most families need, if you choose the model with that in mind. Schlage lists 100 user codes for its Encode models, and Kwikset's Z-Wave 700 locks list 250. Cheaper locks and some retrofit units hold far fewer, and a few store fingerprints and codes in separate, smaller pools. In a Rockland household with parents, eight children, a grandparent, a babysitter, a cleaner and a tutor, you can reach twenty codes before anyone has a guest — so we check the capacity, and the number of fingerprints, against your list before recommending a lock.
Keeping them straight is a naming habit, not a technology problem. Every code goes in under a person's name, never "code 7". Children get their own codes rather than sharing one family code, so the log shows who came home at what time, and so you can delete one child's code after it's been shared with a friend without changing everyone else's. Staff get scheduled codes that only work on their days. Guests get codes with an end date, which disappear on their own.
Two people should hold administrator access — usually both parents, or a parent and an older child who lives at home — so a lost phone never locks the family out of its own lock. Review the user list before every major holiday season and delete anyone who no longer needs access. We set up the first version of the list with you on installation day, and leave it printed on the instruction sheet.
Can the app tell us at bedtime which doors in the house are still unlocked?
Yes, if the locks are connected to the internet through Wi-Fi, a bridge or a hub. The app's home screen shows each connected lock as locked or unlocked, and most apps or smart-home systems can send a notification at a set time, or after a door has been unlocked for a set number of minutes. Ramapo police, after a night in April 2024 when people walked into unlocked homes in Airmont looking for car keys and valuables and tried a sliding door in New Hempstead, reminded residents to lock doors, secure windows and set alarms before bedtime — a door-status check at bedtime does exactly that job.
A status check is only as good as the lock's sense of whether the door is actually closed. A deadbolt can report "locked" with its bolt thrown into thin air if the door was left resting against the frame. Locks with a built-in door-position sensor, or a separate door contact, can tell the difference between a door that is shut and bolted and one that is just bolted. On the doors that matter most at night, we fit and calibrate that sensor.
Remember that the check covers only the doors with connected locks. A mechanical Shabbat door or a slider with a hook-bolt lock won't appear in the app. For those, an alarm door contact can report open or closed, and the family's bedtime routine — a last walk past the front door and the slider — still matters.
Raised ranches, split-levels and their doors
The sliding door from our raised ranch's kitchen to the deck only has a thumb latch — can it be made keyless and properly locked?
Yes, and it is often the weakest door in the house. Most factory slider latches are hooks operated by a small thumb lever, built to keep the door closed rather than to resist someone lifting or forcing it. In the April 2024 Ramapo incidents, police specifically mentioned an attempt to open a sliding door in New Hempstead. On a raised ranch the slider is usually on the upper level, onto a deck reached by outside stairs, which makes it less exposed than a ground-floor patio door — but not unreachable.
Ordinary smart deadbolts and retrofit units are designed for swinging doors and won't fit a slider. The keyless options are different hardware: surface-mounted keyless locks with a hook bolt that catches the frame, such as Lockey's C150, which its maker describes as mechanical, keyless and weather resistant, with a 3/8-inch hook-bolt throw for sliding glass patio doors; and electronic slider locks sold by several smaller brands. A mechanical hook-bolt lock also suits an observant household, since there's nothing electronic to disable on Shabbat.
Whatever lock goes on, we add the cheap layer that matters most on a slider: a security bar or a pin that stops the door being slid, and anti-lift blocks in the top track so the panel can't be lifted off its rollers. Where you'd like to know when the slider opens, an alarm contact covers it.
Our 1960s front door already has a knob hole and a deadbolt hole — can a smart lock reuse them without new drilling?
Almost always. Doors from Rockland's post-war building boom were bored for a separate knob and deadbolt, and smart deadbolts are designed for exactly that preparation. Allegion's specification for Schlage's smart deadbolts calls for a 1-3/8 to 2-inch door, a 2-1/8-inch or 1-1/2-inch cross bore, a 1-inch edge bore and a 2-3/8 or 2-3/4-inch backset — the standard sizes most of these doors already have. The smart deadbolt goes in the upper hole; the knob or a matching lever stays in the lower one.
Two things can complicate it. First, holes that have been enlarged or moved over sixty years: a previous owner may have added a second deadbolt, fitted a handleset with a thumb-latch grip, or patched a hole badly. We measure the backset and the bore on the day, and fill and reinforce anything the new lock won't cover. Second, the old strike: original strikes are often held by short screws into the trim. We replace them with long screws into the framing so the bolt holds against a kick.
If you'd like the lower hole to carry a matching keyless lever rather than a plain knob, most smart deadbolt lines have one. On doors where the knob is used to latch the door and the deadbolt is the lock, we leave the knob non-locking so nobody is ever locked out by the knob alone.
Our front door swings outward onto the step — does that rule out a smart deadbolt?
No. Most residential smart deadbolts work on in-swinging and out-swinging doors, and many motorised models sense the door's handing during setup. An outward-swinging door does change three things we check. The hinges are on the outside, so the pins must be non-removable or secured, otherwise the door can be lifted off regardless of the lock. The keypad faces the weather more directly, because there's no recess to shelter it. And a storm door is usually impossible, so the lock itself takes the rain.
Out-swinging doors are most common in Rockland on additions and side entrances to lower levels, where an inward-swinging door would hit stairs or a landing. On those, the step outside is often small, and anyone using the keypad stands where the door will swing into them. We position the keypad so it can be reached and read from beside the door's swing rather than in front of it.
For an outward-opening door that's also an exit from a lower-level apartment or playroom, the inside hardware has to open with one motion, without a key or code, like every other exit door we work on.
Rented rooms and accessory apartments
We let rooms in our house to boarders — what does Rockland expect of the locks on those bedroom doors?
Start with the permit, not the lock. Rockland County's Department of Health says it inspects and permits every rooming house in the county each year, and that rooming houses are subject to specific requirements on bathrooms, cooking and dining, door locks, sleeping-room floor space, smoke and carbon monoxide detector locations, and local building codes. Letting rooms to unrelated boarders can turn a house into a rooming house in the eyes of the county and your town or village, and that comes with a permit and an inspection before any lock question.
The county has been actively enforcing those rules. After the 2023 Spring Valley house fire that killed five members of one family, inspectors cited buildings owned by the same landlord for illegal single-room occupancies, illegal conversions and missing smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, and the county had already taken over code enforcement in Spring Valley the year before. A keypad lock on every bedroom door of an otherwise ordinary single-family house is one of the things that makes an inspector look twice.
So we don't fit keypad or keyed locks on bedroom doors in a house unless the owner can show us the space is permitted for that use. Where it is, the locks have to suit the permit's conditions and open from inside with one motion, never needing a key or code to get out. For a legal accessory apartment with its own entrance, we fit that entrance like any other front door: its own lock, its own codes, a plain inside release.
Shuls, yeshivas and community buildings
Our shul is applying for a state security grant — can keypads or fob readers on the doors be part of the request?
Yes. Governor Hochul's September 8, 2026 announcement of the Securing Communities Against Hate Crimes awards lists the improvements the money funds, including lighting, locks, alarms, panic buttons, fencing, barriers, access controls, shatter-resistant glass and security training. Organisations could request up to $250,000 each in that round, and 99 grants totalling more than $24 million went to the Mid-Hudson region. Keypads, readers, electric strikes, door contacts and request-to-exit hardware all fall under locks and access controls.
What matters for an application is that the door work is specific and justified. Grant reviewers and administrators want to see which doors, what hardware on each, and why — a main entrance that needs controlled entry during the week, side doors that need to be locked from outside but stay exits, a school wing that needs separate credentials. We walk the building with your board or security committee, write an itemised quote door by door, and note where hardware choices are driven by egress rules so that nothing in the plan conflicts with the fire code.
Grant programmes have their own rules about procurement, timing and when work can start; follow the programme's guidance and the award letter, and don't commission work before you're allowed to. We'll provide the documentation you need when you're ready.
How do we keep a shul's front door controlled on Shabbat, when many of the people coming in can't use a keypad or a fob?
By planning for Shabbat as its own operating mode rather than an exception. Chabad.org's guidance notes that electronic key cards, fobs and keypads can't be used on Shabbat, and suggests arranging before Shabbat to use a door with a standard key or having staff open the door. For a congregation, that usually means the main entrance is attended during services: a greeter, a security volunteer or a hired guard who sees who is coming in, with the door unlocked only while someone is watching it.
The access control system can support that without anyone touching it on Shabbat. Doors can be set on a schedule before Shabbat begins, so they unlock and relock at fixed times; whether a pre-set electronic schedule is acceptable for your community is a question for your rabbi, and we set it up whichever way the shul decides. Side and rear doors stay locked from the outside all Shabbat while remaining exits from inside with panic hardware. A camera at the entrance gives the person at the door a view of the approach.
During the week, the same doors run normally: codes or fobs for staff, teachers and regular volunteers, schedules for minyanim and classes, and a log the administrator can check. The hardware is the same; only the schedule and the people at the door change.
Shops and offices
Our Route 59 store closes before Shabbat and the closing time moves every week with sunset — can the door's schedule keep up?
Partly, and it's worth knowing which part. Most consumer smart lock apps and many small access control systems schedule by clock time and day of the week, not by sunset, so a schedule set for 3:45 p.m. on Fridays in December is wrong by April. Some smart-home platforms and larger access control systems can trigger on sunrise and sunset or hold a calendar of exception days. Candle-lighting time moves every week and Yom Tov falls on different weekdays every year, so even a sunset-aware schedule needs checking around the holidays.
The arrangement that works for most Rockland shops is simpler. The door relocks automatically every time it closes, so it is never left unlocked overnight or over Shabbat. Opening for the day is done by the first employee with a code. Closing is done by people rather than by a timer, with the last person out checking the door. Staff codes are set to stop working from Friday afternoon to Saturday night, adjusted seasonally, so nobody can open the store during that time by accident or otherwise.
If the store reopens on Saturday night or runs on Sundays, we set a separate weekend schedule. The owner gets a notification if the door is opened outside business hours, which is the alert that actually matters.
