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My apartment building announced it's installing Latch

9 pointsby okprodover 3 years ago
I got an email from my building that they&#x27;re installing Latch (&lt;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.latch.com&#x2F;&gt;) on all the doors. Has anyone had success in fighting this? I don&#x27;t want to install an app on my phone to go around unlocking building, gym, apartment, etc. doors. I read a few years ago a tenant was able to sue for a hard key but Latch was still installed.<p>We already use key fobs, not sure what benefits the building is getting from Latch &#x2F; or what Latch&#x27;s business model is.

4 comments

glauconover 3 years ago
&gt; not sure what benefits the building is getting from Latch<p>My first guess would be to support AirBnB usage. I&#x27;ve never seen Latch but I wouldn&#x27;t be surprised whether apartment owners who rent their apartments out on AirBnB grant temporary access by asking the users to install the app and then sending them &quot;an electronic key&quot;.<p>No idea how Latch got on yesterday during the us-east-1 outage but it might be worth reminding your neighbours that they&#x27;re introducing a significant dependency into their lives. You might also ask them how many times they&#x27;ve heard of targetted phone thefts by comparison with targetted key&#x2F;fob theft.
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account-5over 3 years ago
What happens if you can&#x27;t install the app? If you don&#x27;t have a smartphone? The build surely can&#x27;t require you to get a smartphone to live in the building you&#x27;re already living in? I don&#x27;t live in the US so genuine questions.<p>I wonder if you could demand they provide the device you need to open your door, they provide a key fob for that reason.
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Freak_NLover 3 years ago
Is your landlord explicitly telling you you need a smartphone capable or running their app? Latch seems to work with key cards as well.
peruvianover 3 years ago
As a renter you have almost no leverage over this. Nothing you can do except get the hard key like that tenant.