ISONAS access control systems deployed at city departments in Lynwood

ISONAS system utilises low voltage Power over Ethernet (PoE) thus on-going operational costs of the system are lower

Located 15 miles North of Seattle, 8 miles South of Everett, and 19 miles West of Bellevue, Lynnwood, WA is the financial capital for south Snohomish County.

In 2010 the City of Lynwood embarked on an installation of ISONAS access control for a series of buildings spanning the city’s departments. “We began with a simple remote building install of 3 readers”, says Jerry Vogel, Lynwood’s Manager of Network Engineering. “The product provided us the ability to control, monitor and record daily activity effortlessly. The flexibility to use our existing HID proximity cards with a specialised masking code was an economical plus with the new system.”

ISONAS system utilises low voltage Power over Ethernet

After several months of trouble free operations, the City began a replacement project for an aging access system in City Hall. The old system had aged parts that simply were no longer available, so the recently successful installation of the PowerNet system made for an easy replacement strategy for City Hall. The new installation for 9 doors saved money by utilising the existing door strikes, and since the ISONAS system utilises low voltage Power over Ethernet (PoE) the on-going operational costs of the system are lower.

“A remodel of existing office space presented three more access challenges that we again found ISONAS equipment to handle well, so we expanded its feature set even further.” says Mr. Vogel. “ISONAS performed the demanding needs for automated door unlocking, locking, special schedule access and emergency accessibility.” The installation of the ISONAS equipment was performed by Teknon Corporation of nearby Redmond, WA. “I am really impressed with the ISONAS IP readers and the customer is very happy with the install,” states Pete Bretzke, Teknon’s Project Manager for the City’s installation projects.

“A traditional panel-based access control system takes so much longer to install. Since the ISONAS system does not require a panel and since the only wiring needed is a Cat 5 cable, it is simply amazing that one guy can put together 3 or 4 doors a day instead of the usual 1 or 2. It makes us look like geniuses!”

PowerNet reader controllers

The City has since added PowerNets for the new Parks and Recreation facility, as well as for the Vehicle Maintenance Facility and the City Water Treatment Plant. These two facilities have incorporated the PowerNet reader controllers for security gate access, combined with security cameras, to comply with Federal and State guidelines to protect these types of municipal infrastructure facilities.

According to Larry Vogel, “We wanted to have an effortless conversion of our old legacy access systems to a new IP networked architecture and we needed to provide better automation and centralised management for all of our sites with better audit tools. Now every time we have a need to expand our system we know that no matter where we need to provide access control we can rely on ISONAS and its feature rich and flexible capabilities.”