I’m considering installing smart locks on my house’s exterior doors. I’m currently looking at the Lockin Veno Solar Face or the Lockly Visage Zeno.
My lifestyle is to always have the doors locked, and we unlock them when we go in or out, and then we re-lock the door behind us.
It seems that smart locks only “smart unlock” the door from the outside, and from the inside you must manually unlock it. I find that annoying and of such an insignificant increase in convenience over my current manual locks that is not worth it.
I suspect that locks that support ultra wide bandwidth (sense the presence of your phone/watch) would unlock from the inside a well as the outside, but I don’t want UWB.
Does anyone have experience with smart locks? Do any of them automate unlocking from inside as well as outside?
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My recommendation, look for smart locks that work locally with no need for online connectivity. Also choose something that does not replace the deadbolt but only replaces the latch on the inside of the house.
This means if you need to change deadbolts you can always replace it without getting a whole new smartlock, and if the smart lock fails you can always open the lock with a regular key.
As for local control, loom for something that works on ZigBee, matter, or zwave and something that you can potentially hardwire, batteries can sometimes last six months on some smart locks but it was a hassle for me, and rechargable batteries only last about 2-3 months.
As for me I choose the August Smart Lock Pro, 3rd Gen with Z-Wave, Silver (AUG-SL03-M03-S03).
I chose this as it had z-wave and is able to connect with homeassistant without the need for online connectivity. One item to note, this locks zwave function is reported to drop by many users, I personally have had no issues, but I run everything through HomeAssistant.
There is also integrated bluetooth which can resolve those issues with bluetooth relays noted on some places online.
As for hardwiring these locks, if they use batteries you can use something called "battery eliminators” which are basically power supplies connected to an equivalent number of dummy batteries, so in this case a 6V supply and 4 AA batteries, one of which connects to the supply. Just make sure to get your voltage correct, you can use a voltage regulator to do this.
Thank you for sharing your experiences and ideas!
Reading this thread I’m even more convinced to keep on using a physical key.
Do not buy smart locks that depend from a cloud service. Any other consideration is secondary.
What do you do when they will force a monthly subscription to unlock your doors? That’s pure P.K.Dick distopyan future.
Of r what do you do when the company decide to drop support for your otherwise perfectly working locks?
Yeah, local-only is a priority for me, but not what in curious about her. Thanks for the advice.
I have no experience with smart locks but I work in IT and would never want anything smart for something essential I need to to rely on. Especially not if it’s provided by a for profit company.
I’d like open source hardware and software smart locks, but I’m not technical enough to make one or even install/configure/maintain one if I could find one.
I won’t get one that requires cloud connectivity, but I think I have to get one that’s made/sold by a for profit company.
Watch the lock picking lawyer on YouTube before buying any smart locks.
To be fair, what lock has kept him out? If there’s not a tool that works in about 3 seconds, he has one made! 😁
My house (and I think most houses) would be trivial to break into even if all exterior doors were bank vault doors. Even with strong locks, many doors have glass in them, windows are easy to pry open or break through and are often left open anyway, spare keys are often hidden in easy to find locations, etc.
My goal with locks is to make it a bit harder or more time consuming for bad actors while not more inconvenient for me. I don’t need Fort Knox protection.
Yup, there are a number of low skill methods of entry for determined parties. Heck, Ive locked myself out before and have jimmied open windows 😅
I’m in a low crime area and grew up seldom locking doors, and I mainly got the smart lock for the wife’s peace of mind knowing that the door is always secure.
I like that LPL is clear there isn’t really a foolproof lock, and that as you said, you can strengthen it or delay it hopefully to the point someone will move to an easier target, but that’s about it.
I have a Nuki Smart Lock Pro 5 and am really happy with it. What was important to me: it’s made in Europe (Austria) and doesn’t send your info to China or USA. There is no fee for some shady online service. In fact, it doesn’t require online connectivity, but if you opt to connect it to Wi-Fi (for free), you can use some of its „smarter“ features. It does have a function to re-lock the door as soon as it closes, this does require the additional purchase of some sensor which I don‘t have. I did however choose to purchase the optional fingerprint reader so the kids can enter and leave easily. There are a lot of great additional features. I really love that thing.
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I have a Tapo (TP-Link) lock, and I can sorta do it a few ways.
I think the issue with what you are wanting (approaching the door and it unlocking for you / geofencing) is that when you are home, your devices’ presence could or would be triggering it often throughout the day. It would either be annoying, constantly killing the battery in the lock, or worst case scenario, you go to check on a sound and approach the door, coincidentally unlocking it for an intruder.
What I can do with my lock is just manually unlock, set a time trigger to lock/unlock, tap a button in the app (which you may be able to put on your home screen?) or I can tell my smart speaker to unlock the door. There’s probably a few other options in forgetting. The main reason I have it is to let us know when the door doesn’t close all the way, to give a handsfree way to unlock when carrying stuff, and I have a trigger where if it’s between sunset and sunrise, it will turn on the indoor light for a set time after the door unlocks so you don’t stumble in blind.
Good point. Open-from-inside using facial recognition would cut down on false positives. But I can see how it could be important to not have any situations where your door is unlocked when you don’t want it to be.
It’d be twice as costly with readers on both sides, and the bulk on the inside of my unit is mostly the battery, so you’d either have a much bulkier interior unit or a smaller battery, and if you’re close enough for face/NFC/whatever reader that wouldn’t false positive, you’re likely close enough to just unlock manually.
I was thinking maybe a downward projecting motion sensor so it could see you approach would be small and read an small enough area, but the first time a pet goes to the door, you’re unlocked unintentionally again! 😸
