By Kent · Lock Depot Staff Writer

A small office with four or five people and no receptionist has a common problem: everybody needs a key, somebody always loses one, and when a person leaves you either re-key the whole door or hope they dropped the key in the mail. The Yale nexTouch was built for exactly this door. But it is not automatically the right answer, and I have talked people out of it more than once.

What the nexTouch actually solves

It is a standalone pushbutton keypad lock. No wires to a panel, no server, no monthly fee. You program codes at the door. Give the bookkeeper her own code, give the part-timer a code, and when the part-timer leaves you delete that one code in thirty seconds. Nobody hands back a key because there is no key to hand back. For a five-person office that turns over a person a year, that alone earns the price.

The NTB610 is the standalone version, no network. That is the one most small offices want. If you already run an access-control system and want this door on it, that is a different, wired model and a different order. Do not buy the standalone thinking you will network it later. You cannot, not without swapping the lock.

When I tell people to skip it and buy a keyed lever

Keypads have two real weaknesses. Codes get shared, and buttons wear. If your five people are the type to write the code on a sticky note by the door, the keypad buys you nothing a keyed Augusta lever would not. And on a door that cycles a few hundred times a day, the most-pressed digits wear shiny and a smart person reads the code off the wear pattern. For a low-traffic office door, none of that bites. For a busy retail back door, it does. Match the tool to the traffic.

Batteries, and the failure people forget

It runs on AA batteries in the interior housing. When they die, the keypad dies. That is why the physical-key override matters. Buy the version with a key cylinder that matches your building, so a dead battery locks you out for exactly as long as it takes to walk to the key box. The lock chirps a low-battery warning for weeks before it quits, so a dead-battery lockout means somebody ignored it. Do not let that be you. Change them once a year on a schedule and forget about it.

Common questions

Does the nexTouch need to be wired?

The NTB610 standalone does not. You program codes at the door. A networked version exists but it is a different lock and a wired install.

Can I still use a key?

Yes, order the version with a cylinder. The -2802 keys to Schlage C for an existing master system; the -LC takes your own core.

Keypad or keyed lever for a small office?

Keypad if you turn over staff and hate re-keying. Keyed lever if your people share codes anyway or the door is high-traffic.

Lock Depot stocks the Yale nexTouch in the standalone NTB610, keyed and less-cylinder versions, in stock. Start at the Yale hub, or call 877-365-5625 and tell us how many people, whether you run a master key system, and how busy the door is. Three answers and we point you at the right version.