Avigilon Alta Open

Review by eFreeware

If your workplace, building or campus runs the Avigilon Alta Access Control system, Avigilon Alta Open is the piece that turns your phone into the credential you carry. Instead of a key fob or a card, you open a connected door from the handset you already have with you. The app is free, has no ads and no in-app purchases, and it has been installed more than a million times, which suggests it is a familiar sight in offices and shared buildings.

The appeal is straightforward: one less object to remember, and an entry method that can be issued and revoked by whoever manages the building. The developer, Openpath Security, Inc., has kept the app updated, with the most recent release in October 2026 adding dark mode and extending lockdown controls. For anyone whose daily routine involves several secured doors, that combination of convenience and central management is the reason to care.

Built for people whose building already uses Alta

This is not an app you can install on a whim and start using at home. The app is tied to the Avigilon Alta Access Control platform, so the deciding factor is whether your organization has adopted that system. If it has, the app is likely the intended way for staff and tenants to move through secured entrances. If it has not, there is nothing here for you to connect to.

Getting set up is also not something you can do alone. The developer directs users to their administrator, who confirms that the email address is on the system and then sends the links that authorize the app and issue credentials. That means the app sits at the end of a chain that starts with your employer or building manager. Expect a short handover rather than a self-service signup.

The people who benefit most are those who cross a threshold many times a day: office workers arriving in the morning, facilities and security staff moving between zones, reception teams answering an intercom, and tenants in a managed building. A 4.3 average from a few thousand ratings fits an app that does a narrow job for a captive audience and mostly does it well.

Opening a door without reaching for a card

The core action is simple to describe: you approach a door that is part of the Alta system and open it with your phone. The app draws on Bluetooth low energy, WiFi and LTE to make that happen, which is the developer's way of saying the connection should hold up whether you are right at the reader or still walking toward it.

The feature I find most interesting is Wave to Unlock. It relies on location services and the phone's accelerometer, so a gesture near the door is enough to trigger entry rather than a tap on the screen. The developer frames this as proximity-based and secure, and it is the sort of detail that matters when your hands are full or you are moving through a lobby with a bag and a coffee.

Because that behavior depends on location services, the app uses foreground services to keep working while it is not the screen you are looking at. That is the trade-off of hands-free entry: the phone has to know where you are, and the app has to stay awake in the background to act on it.

Intercom calls and visitor conversations

Doors with intercom hardware get a second layer of usefulness. The app uses the microphone so you can hold a two-way audio conversation with whoever is at the entrance, which means a receptionist or office manager can speak to a delivery driver or guest without walking to the panel.

Phone call integration is what makes that practical. Incoming intercom rings are routed to your device as calls, so you receive them the way you receive any other call rather than having to watch a separate app for a notification. The developer presents this as the reliable way to make sure rings reach you.

Put together, the door opening and intercom features cover the two moments that matter in a controlled entrance: letting yourself in, and deciding whether to let someone else in. Both depend on the same underlying system, and both are managed by the same administrator who set up your credentials.

What the app costs

Avigilon Alta Open is free to download. There are no ads, and there are no in-app purchases, so nothing inside the app asks you for money. The cost of the system itself sits with your organization, not with you as a user.

That structure makes sense for what this is: a companion to hardware and software that a business has already chosen and paid for. There is no subscription layered on top of your building's access control, and no paid tier or premium unlock. The practical requirement is administrative rather than financial.

How it compares with the alternatives

The obvious comparison is the physical credential: a card, a fob or a key. Those need no battery, no app and no setup. What the app offers in return is convenience and the ability to have access issued, changed or withdrawn remotely by an administrator, which is hard to do with a piece of plastic already in someone's pocket.

Consumer smart locks tend to be aimed at homeowners and small setups, where you are the one managing everything.

There is also the option of doing nothing and continuing to use whatever the building already provides. The app is worth adding when the phone-based route is genuinely faster for the way you move through the building.

A practical addition for Alta buildings

Avigilon Alta Open does one job and does it within a clearly bounded system. If your organization uses Avigilon Alta Access Control and your administrator has added your email, this is a free, ad-free way to carry your access on your phone, with hands-free entry through Wave to Unlock and intercom conversations routed as calls. The 4.3 average across more than three thousand ratings suggests it holds up for the people who rely on it daily.

The recent update is a sign the app is being looked after: dark mode, lockdown support extended to gateway-connected Schlage locks, faster unlocks for both Avigilon Alta and Schlage hardware, and general fixes. Those are incremental improvements rather than a reinvention, which is appropriate for a utility that people depend on at the door.

I would point this at employees, tenants and facilities staff in buildings that already run the Alta system, particularly anyone who crosses several secured doors a day or handles visitor intercoms. If your building uses a different access platform, there is nothing here to connect to, and the app is not the place to start.

What's new in version 3.6.1

This update adds dark mode support and extends lockdown capabilities to gateway-connected Schlage locks. It also includes performance optimizations for faster Avigilon Alta and Schlage unlocks, along with general bug fixes.