The average office building might look like a fairly innocuous place, but there are plenty of items contained within that are very interesting to potential thieves and burglars. Pay slips, corporate secrets, customer details and other pieces of sensitive information need to be properly secured both day and night, and keeping them in a securely locked room is the most commonly chosen solution.

However, any secure room is only as secure as the locks that make it so, and a simple latch lock or deadbolt might not cut the mustard if your office has valuable items to protect. Consequently, many office buildings are turning to magnetic door locks (also known as maglocks) to provide extra security, and these sophisticated locks have a lot of advantages over more traditional alternatives. However, they also have one or two shortcomings, so you should make sure they are right for your office's security needs before you invest in them.

What are the advantages of choosing magnetic locks?

Extremely secure

While magnetic locks used in residential properties aren't particularly secure compared to traditional locks, commercial-grade maglocks are considerably more powerful and create an incredibly strong bond when activated that is very difficult to bypass via brute force. Generally speaking, it would be harder for a potential thief to barge through a magnetically locked door than it would be to smash through the adjoining wall.

Instant operation

Magnetic locks function based on very simple principles; when they are powered on, the magnets activate instantly to lock the door in question, while unlocking is just as instantaneous when power is cut. A magnetically locked door can therefore be locked in the time it takes for power to reach the magnets, a tiny fraction of a second.

Remote operation

With a simple remote control system that controls the power supplied to the locks, a magnetic lock system can be operated from across the room (or across the street) by an authorised person holding the correct activation device. This enables whoever is in charge of the locks to handle other tasks without having to constantly watch over the secure room.

Easy to install

Despite being more secure than most manual locking mechanisms, magnetic locks are also easier to install, since they contain no interlocking parts. An experienced locksmith can install extremely maglocks on your secure doors in a matter of hours, saving you time and money.

What are the disadvantages of choosing magnetic locks?

Expensive

Commercial-grade maglocks are powerful and sophisticated pieces of equipment and can have a similarly powerful effect on your business's budget. Costs can be kept down by choosing a secure room with a single access point, so you don't have to pay for multiple maglocks to be installed.

Reliant on electrical power

Without a sufficient source of power, the electromagnets that make maglocks so strong and secure simply cannot function, and maglocks hooked up to your office's main energy supply can be bypassed by cutting power to the office. This generally necessitates installation of a separate power supply and battery system to provide security during power outages.