A venture of EMC Horizons · Physical security
Physical access control — hardware + software.
Door controllers that snap together like breakers, and one app to run them. Local-first and fail-secure by design: the doors keep working even when the internet doesn't.
Where things stand
Threshold is in early development. The hardware and the software are being built and validated — there is nothing to buy yet, and this page is a preview of the direction, not a spec sheet. Details coming.
The idea
Instead of a box of boards and ribbon-cable spaghetti, a Threshold panel is a bus that typed nodes clip onto — the way breakers seat into an electrical panel. Each node carries its own LED face that labels itself with the door's name and live status, so the panel reads like a directory. A single Comms Node is the sole gateway and the brain. Decisions are made on-site, and the default is fail-secure: lose power or signal and the doors stay locked, not wide open.
▸ Add a door by seating another node. It attests to the bus, labels itself, and joins.
Why it's different
Each node clips onto the bus like a breaker into a panel — no ribbon-cable spaghetti, no mystery wiring. The face is a small LED screen that labels itself with the door's name and live status, so the whole panel reads at a glance.
Every node proves itself to the bus with a hardware-backed certificate before it's trusted. The bus is tamper-evident and counterfeit-proof: a rogue board, a rubber-ducky, or a flood of junk traffic is refused at the door — not somewhere upstream.
Access rules live on the Comms Node and the doors themselves. A badge is granted or denied in milliseconds, on-site, whether or not there's a network. The internet is an option, never a dependency — and fail-secure is the default.
Program multi-door logic directly: sally-port sequencing (the inner door opens only after the outer is confirmed shut), lockdowns, first-in unlock, and timed schedules — enforced locally as interlocks, not hoped-for from a server.
Program readers, credentials, schedules, and command programs from a single app that runs the same in the field on a phone, at the desk in a browser, and in the office on the desktop. One place to run every door.
How it fits together
Threshold is deliberately shaped so that the further up you go, the less has to be working for a door to open. The server is a convenience; the site is the system.
Door nodes, relays, and I/O nodes clipped onto the bus. They sense the real world — badge presented, request-to-exit, door position — and act on it: lock, unlock, alarm. Right at the opening, in hardware.
The sole gateway and the brain. It holds the site's rules and command programs, makes every access decision locally, and is the only node that talks to the outside network. If the uplink drops, the site keeps running on the rules it already has.
For organizations that want one source of truth across many sites — shared credentials, long-term audit history, and fleet-wide programming — an optional PostgreSQL server ties the Comms Nodes together. Optional by design: a Threshold site is fully operational without it.
Part of EMC Horizons
Threshold is a venture of EMC Horizons, built alongside Tech Ops — the field service platform used by the shops that install access control. The two are meant to fit: the software runs the jobs that put the hardware on the wall. It's early, and we're building it in the open. If that's a world you work in, we'd like to hear from you.