7 signs your apartment building's technology is past end-of-life.

Patches and partial upgrades cost more in the long run than honest replacement. Here's how to tell which camp you're in.

1. Replacement parts for your access platform are hard to find.

If your locks were installed before 2018 and you're calling around for compatible reader replacements, you're past end-of-life. Manufacturers stop supporting old platforms; eventually you'll have a failure with no fix.

2. You're still using key fobs and rekeying on move-outs.

Mobile credentials and instant revocation have been the standard for 5+ years. If your move-out process still involves collecting fobs and rekeying locks, you're leaving thousands of hours of property-manager time on the table every year.

3. Your intercom is wired only and doesn't reach resident phones.

If residents have to physically be in the unit to accept a delivery or visitor, your intercom is functionally non-existent for most of the day. Modern multifamily routes intercom calls to the resident's smartphone wherever they are.

4. Your cameras can't be searched by event.

If finding footage of an incident takes more than 5 minutes, your camera system is past end-of-life. Modern surveillance (UniFi Protect, Verkada) lets you search by motion event, time, or door event in seconds. Anything slower means you can't actually use the footage when you need it.

5. Your network can't support PoE+ for new devices.

Modern access readers, cameras, and APs need PoE+ at minimum. If your switches are still standard PoE (15W), you can't add modern hardware without replacing the network first. Many older buildings discover this only when they try to upgrade.

6. Your PMS doesn't talk to your access system.

If your property manager manually adds new residents to the access platform on move-in day, your tools are misaligned. Modern access platforms sync directly with Yardi, RealPage, and AppFolio. No manual work.

7. Three or more of these are true: power outages take you down, system updates require an on-site tech, residents complain about the tech weekly, your IT vendor blames the access vendor, your access vendor blames the camera vendor.

Integration failures. The systems weren't designed together, so they don't work together. This is the most common reason buildings call us for a rebuild.