Is Openpath the same as Avigilon Alta?

Yes. Openpath was acquired by Motorola Solutions in 2021 and rebranded as Avigilon Alta access in 2022. The product is actively sold and developed under the Alta brand, and the Wave-to-unlock mobile UX inherited from Openpath is still in it. Historical documentation still uses both names interchangeably.

Are Salto and Avigilon Alta both NDAA Section 889 compliant?

Yes. Salto is Spanish (headquartered in Oiartzun) and not on the FCC Covered List. Avigilon Alta is part of Motorola Solutions (US-headquartered in Chicago). Both are approved for US federal-touching deployments. Section 889 targets named Chinese vendors (Hikvision, Dahua, Hytera, Huawei, ZTE), not these two.

Can I run Salto and Alta at the same building?

Yes, and this mixed-architecture pattern is common: Alta at primary entries (storefront, parking, main office doors) where wired infrastructure exists or is being run, plus Salto at interior doors (executive suites, hotel rooms, dorm rooms) where wireless retrofit is the practical option. In office buildings this is the typical answer, with Alta at lobby entries, parking gates, and elevator banks and Salto at interior suites and conference rooms. The tradeoff is two admin platforms, which most multi-door deployments accept for the architectural fit on each door type.

Are Salto wireless locks reliable on battery power?

Yes, with normal maintenance. They run on standard AA batteries with typical 2-year life, and the Salto KS dashboard surfaces battery status so the operations team can swap proactively. The tradeoff is battery management overhead versus the cost of pulling wire to interior doors.

Which is better for hotels?

Salto by a wide margin. Its hospitality lineup includes guest-room, suite, common-area, and back-of-house locks, with property-management workflows for check-in, key card issuance, and expiration. Alta has no comparable hospitality depth, so for hotel deployments Salto is almost always the right answer.

What if I am not sure which fits?

Book the free consultation. You walk through your door inventory by type (primary entry, interior, hospitality guest room, multi-tenant resident), building condition (retrofit vs new construction), and tenant population. You leave with a written read on whether Salto, Alta, or a mixed deployment fits, plus a 5-year cost bracket for each. Tec-Tel installs both. Call 855-577-0400 or book online.

Compare · Cloud access control

Salto vs Openpath (now Avigilon Alta).

Wireless battery-powered locks against cloud-managed wired access. Both are NDAA compliant, and they rarely compete for the same door. Many buildings deploy both.

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NDAA-compliant
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1,000+ deployments over 15 years

Pick Salto when you need access control across many interior doors in an existing building without pulling wire (wireless battery-powered electronic locks). Pick Openpath (now Avigilon Alta access) when you want a cloud-managed wired access platform at primary entries with one of the cleanest mobile credential experiences in the category, plus the option to tie in Avigilon video. Many buildings deploy both: Alta at primary entries, Salto at interior doors. Both are NDAA Section 889 compliant.

§01 At a glance

The criteria that decide it.

Find the row that matches your biggest constraint. Capability claims are sourced to each vendor's published product documentation.

Criterion	Salto	Openpath (Alta)
Product naming today	Salto wireless electronic locks plus Salto KS (cloud) or Salto Space (on-prem with cloud option) platform. The brand is unchanged.	Openpath was rebranded as Avigilon Alta access in 2022 after the Motorola Solutions acquisition. Same product DNA, current product is Alta.
Lock architecture	Wireless battery-powered electronic locks. Salto XS4, Neo, and XS4 Mini fit standard door prep without new wire. Power and credentials happen at the lock.	Wired electrified locks (strikes, mags, electrified panic devices) connected to Alta controllers via standard wired infrastructure.
Best fit by door type	Interior doors in existing buildings: hotel rooms, dorm rooms, executive suites, multi-tenant residences, conference rooms. Anywhere pulling wire is cost-prohibitive.	Primary entries, glass storefront doors, parking gates, lobby doors. Anywhere wire is already in place or being run for new construction.
Mobile credentials	Bluetooth and NFC mobile credentials via the Salto KS Mobile app. Apple Wallet support expanding. Physical cards, fobs, and PIN also supported.	Apple Wallet and Google Wallet support out of the box. Wave-to-unlock UX inherited from Openpath. One of the most polished mobile experiences in the category.
NDAA Section 889	Compliant. Salto is Spanish, headquartered in Oiartzun. Not on the FCC Covered List.	Compliant. Avigilon Alta is part of Avigilon (Motorola Solutions), headquartered in Chicago, IL.
Video integration	Salto integrates with major VMS platforms (Milestone, Genetec, others) for event correlation. Not a unified video-plus-access stack on its own.	Native integration with Avigilon Alta video and Avigilon Unity. Door events tie to video clips on the Alta dashboard. Third-party cameras supported via open API.
Multi-tenant building features	Strong for hospitality and dorm operations. Mature property-management workflows (check-in, key issuance, expiration).	Strong multi-tenant features inherited from Openpath: tenant-isolated admin, branded resident apps, package room and amenity integrations.
Pricing model	Hardware-heavy per door (each wireless lock is complete hardware) plus per-door KS cloud subscription. Higher hardware cost per door, much lower wire-pull labor on retrofit.	Per-door cloud subscription plus reader and controller hardware. Lower hardware cost per door than wireless locks, but install labor is higher because wire is part of the install.

§02 Where Salto wins

Pick Salto when these matter most.

Existing buildings with many interior doors

Salto's wireless battery-powered locks are the only practical answer for interior doors in existing buildings where pulling wire to every door is cost-prohibitive or physically impossible. Hotels, dorms, executive office suites, and multi-tenant residential are the classic cases. Wired access cannot reach those doors economically.

Hotel, dorm, and multi-tenant operations

Salto's hospitality lineup is one of the most-deployed in the category (guest-room, suite, common-area, and back-of-house locks) with mature workflows for check-in, key issuance, and expiration that Alta does not match. The same wireless architecture handles dorm and student-housing door density, and reaches every unit door in mixed-use residential without per-unit wire, paired with KS multi-tenant administration.

Retrofit without wire-pull budget

If you are adding access control to an existing building and the budget cannot absorb running wire to dozens of interior doors, Salto's wireless architecture eliminates that line. Hardware cost is higher per door, install labor dramatically lower, and the 5-year TCO usually favors Salto for retrofit.

Mixed wired and wireless on one platform

Salto Space supports both wireless interior locks and wired primary-entry controllers, so you can deploy one Salto platform across the whole building rather than stitching together two systems.

§02 Where Openpath (Alta) wins

Pick Openpath (Alta) when these matter most.

One of the cleanest mobile credential experiences

Wave-to-unlock with Apple Wallet and Google Wallet support is mature and well-deployed, inherited from the Openpath product DNA. Tenants and employees onboard faster, with fewer lost-fob support calls and cleaner deprovisioning. Where mobile UX is the primary criterion at primary entries, Alta has the edge.

Unified Alta video plus access in one stack

If you are deploying access control alongside Avigilon Alta video or Avigilon Unity, the Alta platform puts both on one dashboard with one cardholder record and one event timeline, and door events tie to video clips automatically. Salto has no comparable native video-plus-access story.

Primary entries with IT-led admin and IdP integration

Alta is at its best at primary entries, glass storefront doors, and parking gates where wired electrified locks exist or are being run. The admin experience is one of the cleanest in the category, with mature Okta, Azure AD, and other IdP integration via SCIM that reduces manual admin overhead for IT-led shops. Salto's IdP integration is also good, but Alta has the IT-buyer polish.

Motorola ties and greenfield construction

If your operation already runs Motorola radios or dispatch, Alta ties into the broader Motorola public-safety and commercial-security stack. In new construction or major renovations where wire is being run anyway, Alta's wired architecture takes advantage of the infrastructure already going in.

§03 Pricing reality

Hardware cost and install labor offset each other.

Salto wireless locks cost more per door than a wired electrified strike or mag lock plus reader. A Salto XS4 Neo is a complete electronic lockset; an Alta controller plus reader plus electrified hardware is a multi-component install. On hardware alone, Alta typically wins by a meaningful margin per door at primary entries.

Install labor flips the math. Pulling wire to interior doors in an existing building can cost more than the lock itself, especially in finished spaces (ceiling tiles to remove, drywall to patch, conduit to run). Salto eliminates that line for wireless doors. The all-in 5-year TCO depends heavily on door type and building condition: retrofit-heavy interior-door deployments favor Salto, new construction or wired primary entries favor Alta. Get both quotes for your specific door inventory and condition.

→ Salto: higher hardware cost per door, lower install labor on retrofit.
→ Alta: lower hardware cost per door, higher install labor for wire pull.
→ 5-year TCO depends on door type and building condition more than on per-door subscription rates.
→ Mixed-architecture deployments (Alta at primary entries, Salto at interior doors) are common because each platform wins on different door types.

Questions buyers ask us

FAQ

Is Openpath the same as Avigilon Alta?: Yes. Openpath was acquired by Motorola Solutions in 2021 and rebranded as Avigilon Alta access in 2022. The product is actively sold and developed under the Alta brand, and the Wave-to-unlock mobile UX inherited from Openpath is still in it. Historical documentation still uses both names interchangeably.
Are Salto and Avigilon Alta both NDAA Section 889 compliant?: Yes. Salto is Spanish (headquartered in Oiartzun) and not on the FCC Covered List. Avigilon Alta is part of Motorola Solutions (US-headquartered in Chicago). Both are approved for US federal-touching deployments. Section 889 targets named Chinese vendors (Hikvision, Dahua, Hytera, Huawei, ZTE), not these two.
Can I run Salto and Alta at the same building?: Yes, and this mixed-architecture pattern is common: Alta at primary entries (storefront, parking, main office doors) where wired infrastructure exists or is being run, plus Salto at interior doors (executive suites, hotel rooms, dorm rooms) where wireless retrofit is the practical option. In office buildings this is the typical answer, with Alta at lobby entries, parking gates, and elevator banks and Salto at interior suites and conference rooms. The tradeoff is two admin platforms, which most multi-door deployments accept for the architectural fit on each door type.
Are Salto wireless locks reliable on battery power?: Yes, with normal maintenance. They run on standard AA batteries with typical 2-year life, and the Salto KS dashboard surfaces battery status so the operations team can swap proactively. The tradeoff is battery management overhead versus the cost of pulling wire to interior doors.
Which is better for hotels?: Salto by a wide margin. Its hospitality lineup includes guest-room, suite, common-area, and back-of-house locks, with property-management workflows for check-in, key card issuance, and expiration. Alta has no comparable hospitality depth, so for hotel deployments Salto is almost always the right answer.
What if I am not sure which fits?: Book the free consultation. You walk through your door inventory by type (primary entry, interior, hospitality guest room, multi-tenant resident), building condition (retrofit vs new construction), and tenant population. You leave with a written read on whether Salto, Alta, or a mixed deployment fits, plus a 5-year cost bracket for each. Tec-Tel installs both. Call 855-577-0400 or book online.

Get a straight comparison

One call picks the right access architecture for your building.

Tec-Tel installs both Salto and Avigilon Alta, often together: Alta at primary entries, Salto at interior doors. Bring your door inventory and the condition of the building. We'll walk the mixed-architecture options and the five-year costs. Call 855-577-0400 or book online.

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