key pads or lock box

[Melissa378]

Hi everyone.  Does anyone have a particular key pad or lock box to recommend for letting guests in on their own?

[Dimitar27]

They are all the same- produced by one or two Chinese factories. Probably one.

[Jennifer1421]

@Melissa378 

We use an old-school lockbox from Masterlock. It's not as convenient as a keypad, from what I've read, but it works for us.

Pros:

We prefer not to load up our phones with apps; old-school is "no-tech"

No-tech is less expensive by far

We never need to worry that the batteries have failed, and guests will be locked out

Our exterior door has a decorative half-window which is very near the handle. Any keypads we've seen all have the pad at the top, so won't fit our needs.

Cons:

We manually have to change the code each time (not a problem for us, as we live onsite but it IS a bit of a pita)

Possibility that guests may lose/forget to leave the key, necessitating getting new keys cut (and, for the paranoid, the possibility that a guest may have a copy of the key made for their own nefarious purposes)

Some guests seem to have problems opening the box

Cheers!

[Chill-and-Relax0]

We used Masterlock's lockboxes over the years then, about two years ago, switched to a Schlage Encode keypad, and couldn't be happier with that. Padlock beats lockbox in every category except price. 

Lockbox gives you a false sense of security; they are mostly made of cast alloys that can be easily crushed with a hammer or strong clamp, the shackle can be cut with a relatively small bolt cutter.