New Smart Padlock System

We are part of an LTA/Clubspark Pilot to introduce a new inexpensive Smart Gate Access System for tennis courts and Club Facilities.

Clubspark and the LTA have offered a secure access control system linked to the court booking module of Clubspark for several years, but this system costs about £4000 to install and also has ongoing charges. 

As our revenue from 'Pay and Play' is small we could not afford this investment when we introduced 'Pay and Play' (which we were required to do as a condition for the £14,000 grant we received from the county council for court resurfacing in 2020). We operated a system where 'Pay and Play' bookings were sent the code to a keybox containing the court key, but this meant that the keybox code had to be changed regularly, which is a complicated manual process, not only changing the key box code but changing the notification emails and resending the notification emails for any outstanding bookings at the time of change. 

We complained to the LTA that it should be possible to integrate an inexpensive Smartlock system such as those employed by many AirB&B properties and they must have been listening as they contacted us to be part of this trial. 

Quite simply the Smart Padlock is integrated with the Booking system and sends a unique one time code via the booking confirmation email, that code only works for the time and duration of the booking.

The Padlock also has a separate code set for member access which stays the same until it is changed, this is done via a Smartphone application. 

This system is relatively low cost, £150 for a Smart Padlock, a one time integration fee from Clubspark, and a £2 fee per month. As we are a pilot for the LTA they purchased the Padlock and waived the one time integration fee for us.

Hopefully the system will prove a success and significantly reduce the administration overhead for 'Pay and Play'