March 15 - Weekly Update
By: Jim Hilker, Caribbean Village HOA President
It’s All About The Gates and Doors
This week I’ll limit my update to the Venice Ave Gate and Community Center access system. As you all know we’ve been working on changing the entry gate access technology over the past few months. The reason behind this is that our original system had reached the end of it’s functional life-cycle which was causing frequent and sporadic malfunctions and a significant increase in repair and maintenance costs. As all things do, they needed updating. Also, as with most technology, the updates are new and improved, and also cost less than the old versions did originally. Also, as with most things, change is hard and not something we really want to deal with, but we can only put it off for so long before the inevitable catches up.
Venice Ave entry gate now has the new Key Pad installed and operational. We were hopeful, and even assumed that the remote button fobs would work better with this change over. Unfortunately, the technology behind the remote fobs is affixed to the large gate control boxes and not the key pad, so the remote fobs functionality will have to wait until we have to replace the gate control boxes in the future.
So for now, our options for opening the Venice Ave gate (and soon also the River Rd entry gate) are limited to:
Tap-2-Open Mobile App
Create and enter Pin Code into Key Pad (see below)
Tap your fob or card that you use to enter the pool access gates to the base of the Key Pad (see further below)
Pin Code Instructions
Your Pin Codes are generated by you from your Tap-2-Open app. I have created a step by step tutorial in how you can create and use Pin Codes. You can access the tutorial by clicking or tapping HERE.
Community Center Door Lock Changes
As with the entry gates, the electro-magnetic (mag-locks) door locking technology used for the doors inside the Community Center Compound is also old and in need of updating. The plan is to interface Tap-To-Open here as well, but for now we had to disconnect the mag-locks on the meeting room, restrooms, and fitness room doors. The Board agreed that this will stay this way indefinitely as it did not make any sense to have them locked since the only people that can get inside the compound (pool area) are residents and their guests, who all have the right and priviledge to use those amenities anyway. Some folks have shared concerns about vandalism or theft, but the odds of that happening are not increased just by having the doors unlocked and its just not worth the additional rising costs to maintain that outdated technology. Add to that the fact that the entire area is monitored by security cameras which would enable us to see who enters the meeting room, fitness area, and pool area with a quick review of the recordings.
RFID Fobs and Cards
An existing option we have is the RFID key-fobs and key-cards. These are what we all use to access the Clubhouse gates. These also open the main entry gates through tapping / holding them to the base of the Key Pad. We will be distributing key-cards to anyone (everyone) that needs one in the next few weeks. More info on getting these will be provided in a soon to come update.
Stonewalk Community Garage Sale!
Our neighboring community across Venice Ave, “Stonewalk”, is having a community-wide garage sale today March 15th from 8 - 12. They asked me to let you all know about this. It’s gorgeous community and worth going over there if nothing else but to admire those homes and community.