What Makes Brivo Different From Other Access Control Systems
When someone loses a key at a facility with 40 doors, you know what happens next. Every lock gets rekeyed, every badge gets reissued, and someone spends a day dealing with something that should have taken three minutes. That's the problem Brivo was designed to solve.
Valley Alarm installs and services Brivo access control systems for commercial clients throughout Greater Los Angeles, including office buildings, multi-tenant properties, schools, and industrial facilities from the San Fernando Valley to the Inland Empire. If you're evaluating access control options, our access control service page covers the full range of systems Valley Alarm installs and services.
Brivo is a cloud-based access control platform. No on-site server. No software to install. Administrators grant and revoke access from any browser, from anywhere, in real time.
Cloud-Based Management Without the IT Overhead
Traditional access control systems run on local servers. When something needs to change, someone physically goes to that server, or remotely connects to it, and makes the change. When the server fails, access control fails. When you need to add a site, you add a server.
Brivo flips that model. Everything runs in the cloud. Administrators manage the entire system through a standard web browser. There's no proprietary software, no hardware to maintain on-site beyond the readers and controllers, and no dependency on a local server staying up. A manager in one office can update access permissions for a property across town without leaving their desk.
Mobile Credentials Instead of Physical Cards
Physical keycards get lost. They get copied. Employees forget them, lend them to someone else, or take them when they leave the company. Each of those scenarios is a security event. Most of them don't get reported until someone notices something wrong.
Brivo supports mobile credentials, which means an employee's smartphone becomes their access credential. Access is tied to a specific device and a specific user account. When an employee is terminated, you deactivate their account in the Brivo dashboard and they're out immediately. No card to collect. No rekeying required. No gap between when they left and when their access actually ended.
For facilities with high employee turnover or contractors moving in and out on short timelines, that capability matters more than most of the spec items people focus on when comparing systems.
Multi-Site Access Control from One Dashboard
Managing access control across multiple locations is where most legacy systems start to break down. Each site has its own controller, its own credential database, its own quirks. Moving an employee between locations means changes in two separate systems. Auditing who has access to what, across the portfolio, is a manual process.
Brivo is built for multi-site from the ground up. One dashboard covers all locations. Access can be granted or restricted by site, by door, by time of day, and by user group. Warehouse staff get the loading dock but not the server room. Contractors get access for the duration of their engagement, then it expires. Administrators can make those changes across every facility in the portfolio without logging into each site individually.
Camera Integration
Access control and video surveillance generate more value when they share data. An access event log tells you who entered a door and when. Camera footage tells you what actually happened at that door. When the two are integrated, you can pull up an access event and see the corresponding video clip directly, without scrubbing through hours of footage.
Brivo integrates with Eagle Eye Networks for video, allowing access events and camera footage to be reviewed in a unified interface. For Valley Alarm clients who want camera and access control as a single managed system, Brivo paired with Eagle Eye is the configuration we recommend most often.
Who Should Consider Brivo?
Brivo fits organizations that need to manage access across multiple people, multiple doors, or multiple sites without building out IT infrastructure to support it. Office buildings, multi-tenant commercial properties, cannabis facilities, schools, healthcare organizations, and industrial operations all fall into that category.
It's also a practical starting point for organizations currently using physical keys that want to move to electronic access control without overhauling everything at once. Brivo can be scoped to a single entry point and expanded as the need grows.
The one scenario where it may not be the best fit: facilities with complex legacy systems that require deep integration with on-premise infrastructure. Valley Alarm can assess your site and tell you whether Brivo's cloud-based model fits the application or whether a different system would serve it better.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Brivo access control right for a small business?
Brivo scales well from small to large. A single-entry operation can use Brivo just as effectively as a large facility with dozens of doors. The cloud-based model means there's no on-site server investment, which keeps the infrastructure cost reasonable for smaller deployments. Valley Alarm can scope an installation to fit the actual size and complexity of your operation.
Can Brivo be used for time and attendance tracking?
Yes. Brivo logs every access event with a timestamp and user attribution. That data can be used to track when employees arrived, which areas they accessed, and when they left. It's not a payroll system, but the access logs are a useful supplementary record for facilities that want to cross-reference time and attendance against physical access data.
What happens to access control if the internet goes down?
Brivo controllers store access permissions locally, so doors can continue operating based on the last-synced rules even during a connectivity interruption. Administrators won't be able to make real-time changes during an outage, but credentialed users can still get in and out. Full functionality resumes when the connection is restored.
How does Valley Alarm install Brivo systems?
Valley Alarm handles the full installation from site walk to activation. That includes mounting and wiring the door controllers and readers, configuring the Brivo dashboard for your locations and user groups, setting up mobile credentials if applicable, and integrating with existing camera systems. We've been installing commercial access control throughout Greater Los Angeles since 1981 and hold the licensing required for this work throughout California.
Does Brivo work with existing cameras?
Brivo integrates natively with Eagle Eye Networks cameras. For existing systems from other manufacturers, compatibility depends on the specific equipment. Valley Alarm can assess your current setup and tell you whether it can be integrated with a Brivo deployment or whether a camera upgrade would be the cleaner path forward.
Ready to move past physical keys?
Valley Alarm has been installing and servicing commercial access control systems throughout Greater Los Angeles since 1981. We'll assess your facility and recommend the right system for your doors, your users, and your situation.
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