So you’re in the market for biometric locks, perhaps to put on the front door of your home or to better secure your office. You have familiarized yourself with the aspects of biometric locks. You understand the concept of the sensor, which reads input such as a fingerprint or voice and compares it to information stored in the database to determine if there is a match. You understand that when the lock permits access, a match has been made.

You have researched the terminology; you know what FAR means (false acceptance rate) and understand DPI (the measure of sensor resolution in biometric sensors). Perhaps you have a few specific models of biometric lock in mind. You’re all ready to purchase your lock, excited about installing yourself and know you will diligently check the batteries so nothing can ever go wrong.

Or can it?

Maybe in your excitement came across the concept of "sensor life," not realizing that no sensor lasts forever. Perhaps it was not clearly listed in the product description but it’s true: the sensor in your biometric device will ultimately die.

The good news is: most sensors will last for one million uses, known as "swipes" or "rubs." For many purposes, this is more than sufficient. For instance, if you install a fingerprint lock on your front door and use it twice a day, it will last for 500,000 days or almost fourteen hundred years which is quite impressive. Your biometric lock will protect you for your entire life and could continue to protect your family in the future. It’s a worthy investment.

However, you might demand more from your biometric lock. Perhaps you are head of a security department for a company which needs something to grant access to a large number of employees, several times a day. You can expect your sensor to reach its life capacity much sooner in that case.

When shopping for any sort of biometric device, be sure to pay attention to the sensor life as well as rates of false acceptance and rejection, resolution and database capacity.

Sensor life can range from one hundred thousand to tell million swipes. You certainly don’t want to invest in an access control solution only to realize the sensor or entire lock will need to be replaced within the year (unless, of course, you are that fickle about security).