Every one of the locks pictured have a traditional lock as a backup. Therefore, none of those smartlocks could ever be more secure. Even if the smart parts were 100% flawless, the lock will have all the weaknesses of a traditional door lock because one is included as a backup.
If you were to spend an equal cost on a lock, you will get more security from the traditional lock because all the budget can be spent on the lock instead of split between the lock and the electronics.
But how valuable is the security of the lock anyway? The weakest part of your home is the windows. If someone wanted to break into your house they can break your windows and climb through regardless what lock you have on the front door.
But how valuable is the security of the lock anyway? The weakest part of your home is the windows. If someone wanted to break into your house they can break your windows and climb through regardless what lock you have on the front door.
There is a movie from 1992 with Robert Redford, “Sneakers”. It is about a team of hackers, in a scene they face a door with an unexpected smart lock and find the right strategy, just kick the f* door.
Still, I take him at his word that he makes it look much much easier than it is. And have bought a couple of locks based on his contentment with the quality and pick resistance.
I haven’t done a breakdown on smartlocks. I do work with machine locks, you know for safeties. We can make them pretty freaken hard to bypass, but I can.
What I have already works. I added a few security pins and my door will likely be broken before someone picks it. Insurance company will understand if I someone broke something to get in, which is why I’m not entirely made at kwikset.
Why add more points of potential failure? I’m more concerned someone can get in without me knowing they had.
It’s important to remember that no lock is entirely unpickable. It’s just a matter of time, skill, tools, and know-how. Generally speaking, if someone is willing to pick a lock, they will be able to pick your lock eventually.
But arguably even more importantly, most people do not possess the skill, tools or know-how to pick a lock and will not try. So you get the same benefit from just about ANY lock for the vast majority of people that might break into your home, in that any functioning lock will deter them equally.
Also, even if you have the most secure door locks known to man, even if they are literally unpickable, that will not keep motivated people from entering your home through other means. Having a perfectly secure lock just means that it become preferable for them to break in through a window, by literally breaking in a door, by your crawlspace/basement access, etc. They could also catch you outside the home and use you to gain access by threat, trickery or theft of your keys.
So, to me, even if a smart lock is less secure than a standard lock they are both going to act as sufficient deterrence for most situations and the tangential benefits of a smart lock can be worth the marginal loss of security. But that’s a choice you have to make for yourself.
Edit: Also, some features can make smart locks massively more beneficial to addressing a break in attempt even while being easier to actually break in. For example, there are can be some secret distress features, like a alert combination that unlocks the door but also secretly alerts the police of a break in. Or notifications that alert you that the door was unlocked even when you aren’t home. Smart locks come with vulnerabilities, yes. But also unique features that you can’t get with conventional locks.
Don’t worry - that definitely will have happened (the photo is a few months old).
They are all really lovely, and hopefully happy, cats. They’re still quite young (just under 1.5 years now), so still very playful, so there’s plenty of playtime with the humans and with each other. They’re brothers, and most of the time best friends, so they normally all hang out together.
They all get a good amount fussing if they’re in the mood for it, especially the silver one, who’s really into his “tummy tickles” or “belly rubs”, and likes to demand them quite frequently.
But since smart locks generally also have a traditional mechanical mechanism for backup, aren’t they inherently always less secure than a traditional lock since you can find the weakest link in either of the two mechanisms?
Yup. The backup for battery failure on this model is that the bottom of the plate can accept power from the pins of a 9V battery, held there just long enough to punch in the code.
Some smart locks are vulnerable to being manipulated with a magnet, if they’re poorly designed, since someone can just manipulate the motor from outside.
I’ve seen it for keypads that have to send a signal to an actuator located elsewhere, but I think the typical in-door deadbolt (where the keypad is mere millimeters from the motor itself) wouldn’t have the form factor leaving the connection as exposed to a magnet inducing a current that would actually actuate the motor.
Most of LPL’s videos on smart locks just defeat the mechanical backup cylinder, anyway. I’d love to see him take on the specific Yale x Nest model I have, though.
A lock is never weaker than a window. If someone wants in your house, there are ways that don’t have anything to do with your locks. Locks of any quality largely work by deterrence, rather than actual pickability or durability. If I have to literally break something to get in, I’m drawing attention to myself and immediately putting a count down on my robbery before a cop shows up or witnesses get a better look at me, my vehicle, etc. So it’s already not worth it for most petty thieves.
when some thieves broke into my neighbors house they first rang the door bell a few times to make sure no one was home, after that they hopped the fence and went window to window until they found one that was unlocked and went in that way
Haha the dudes that broke in left a big knife on their pillow too not sure if they actually would have used it or was just as a scare tactic, they were like two high school aged dudes that most likely were the kids who lived across the street
A broken window is clear indication of theft for insurance purposes. If your lock gets picked, you might be fucked depending on how your policy is written.
I worked for a company that designed home security devices for a few years… Pretty much everyone i talked to agreed there is only 1 actually good security device that is an effective deterrent. Its called “Large Scary Dog”. Every other device is there just to notify you that all your shit is soon to be or already gone.
On the other hand, these digital locks, while not any safer, are much more convenient. I am all in on not having to carry keys and instead have a code to enter or some other easy access.
Usually there is a warning that the battery is dying well ahead of it actually being dead. One that can send notifications will ping your phone with a low battery message. Others have audible warnings. You unlock it and then it starts beeping at you. It keeps doing that until you either change the batteries or it eventually dies. But you have to do a lot of ignoring for it to die on you. Many do have key backups too though. Just in case
There are ones like August that only add the smart lock on one side and retain the old hardware on the outside. If the battery runs out you just gotta use your key like a plebian. It warns you ahead of time it’s low though and I’ve never had it fail in the half decade I’ve had it.
I know smartlocks have had their share of vulerabilities. I remember 3 or 4 years ago hearing about things such as sending codes un-encrypted over wifi or basing their security on MAC addresses alone. Both are practically a ‘key on top of the doormat’ travesty. THis may have got better. I think the issue is that manufacturers jump at a market without having much knowledge of IT security. Similar to whats happening with the connectivity of cars. The fact that most peeps in IT security(ok, they might lean towards the paranoid) will not have a smart lock on their house is enough for me for the time being.
They have a regular backup cylinder that has all the vulnerabilities of a regular lock.
On top of that they have a bunch of electronics that can be vulnerable.
I can’t see how it would be possible for them to be more secure unless you’re someone who leaves their keys around a lot and a smart lock would let you not have a key on you.
They don’t have to have a backup cylinder. The most common kind (Yale doorman) where I live doesn’t have one. If the Internal battery goes out you can plug in a 9V battery from the outside to power it.
A smart lock with a keyhole is never going to be more secure than a standard key lock as it is a standard key lock. Now that being said if the door will let you know every time its opened you could possibly head something off
I got a smart lock after realizing that we would simply forget to lock the front door sometimes since we typically leave via the garage. It’s connected to Home Assistant and now will lock automatically if no one is home.
Technically, I know that a smart lock is less secure, but in most real world scenarios, knowing that the lock will be locked when we are not home, on top of being notified if it becomes unlocked, I’d argue that it’s more secure now than when I had a dumb lock.
I know it sounds crazy but what I would really like is a smart lock built into the wall and wired up to electric and the bolt would go into a hollow in the door. Sorta reverse of a standard door lock. Problem is since its not standard it would be way more expensive. Its like something I would do if I was rich enough for money to not be an issue.
So, disregarding physical brute force (because that lock bypass method will never change), let's say a smart lock today is functionally equivalent to a traditional lock in terms of security. How's that smart lock going to look in 5 years? In 10? When is the manufacturer going to abandon the product and stop providing security updates? It's only a matter of time before whatever firmware it shipped with becomes obsolete. And then it's just one more thing on the list of pwnd devices that unscrupulous actors can access at will. Your friendly neighborhood junkie in search of quick cash might not know the difference, but a list of people that have e-Lock v2.2 would be very lucrative to the types of people that run the current smash and grab operations.
Soft/firmware obsolescence is a thing with any "smart" device, but it becomes especially egregious when it's built into what are traditionally durable devices like appliances. And even more so when it's something embedded, like a lock, outlet, etc. It becomes "replace that light fixture, or leave that vulnerability on the network." A lock takes that from "someone can waltz into my home network" to "someone can waltz through my front door."
Don't let it use the manufacturer's cloud service, but use your own local server (like Home Assistant) accessible only through VPN (Wireguard, Tailscale), keep your home router up to date. This alone eliminates the largest attack surfaces and offers way more privacy.
Ask the lockpicking lawyer. He regularly opens them on YouTube. On the other hand, he opens about anything. But those “smart” locks usually have additional weaknesses.
It’s why I went with an inside only smart lock (I have an August that’s been running like a champ for half a decade). A door lock is a deterrent in the first place, and I don’t expect it to ever stop someone sufficiently motivated. Hell, I broke through an exterior door by accident when I was a young teen - haven’t trusted them since.
However, if some cheat came out (like some of LPL’s “just hold a powerful magnet” locks) I’d rather not have an obvious smart lock that can be picked out from the street.
Against what sort of attack? Who’s the attacker? What capabilities do they have? What do they want?
There’s a saying, “locks are to keep your friends out.” If someone really means you harm, a lock is not going to keep them out: they can smash a window, break down the door, or hit you with a rubber hose until you give them your keys or passwords. This applies no matter what kind of lock you have.
But a lock represents a social barrier: everyone knows that trying to defeat someone else’s lock is a hostile act. The law recognizes this in many places: breaking-and-entering is a more severe crime than trespassing.
A lock may slow down an attacker. It may redirect an attacker to go after your neighbor’s stuff instead of your stuff — but not if everyone has locks.
A password lock has some advantages over a key lock. You don’t have to issue physical keys to everyone you want to allow in. Many allow you to create and revoke passwords separately — so you can grant a friend access to your house while you’re away, and then revoke it when they no longer need it.
However, a password lock also has some disadvantages. If you give a password to one person, that person can easily give it to everyone. That’s a lot harder with a physical key, because they’d have to go make a lot of copies of that key — which, if nothing else, costs money and time.
A computerized lock can create an audit trail: it can record when it was opened, and even which credentials (passwords, keys, …) were used to unlock it.
Any lock can have vulnerabilities — most common key locks can be picked; computerized locks can be attacked through their computer hardware or software.
In cryptography, rubber-hose cryptanalysis is a euphemism for the extraction of cryptographic secrets (e.g. the password to an encrypted file) from a person by coercion or torture—such as beating that person with a rubber hose, hence the name—in contrast to a mathematical or technical cryptanalytic attack.
It is for a house in a residential area, and I don’t keep a lot of valuables in the house. I wish I knew who the attacker would be, so I can catch them with pre-crime.
If you’re concerned about burglars, one problem is that if they decide to hit your house, they can just break a window.
Where I live, burglars often hit cars rather than houses; and they’re very willing to break windows to get in, especially if they see something valuable in the car. They spend no time trying to defeat the locks — hell, some don’t even check if the car is locked. They’re pros; they’ve practiced smashing a window and looting the car quickly.
A lot of the loss due to burglary is the damage the burglar does on the way in, rather than the value of the things stolen. And upgrading locks does nothing to reduce this.
Maybe instead of upgrading your locks, you might be better off spending the same amount of money upgrading your insurance?
Locks should be difficult enough to break that if you can develop the skills to break them, you’re smart enough to get a real job and not be a burglar.
Cars have historically been broken into and stolen a lot. Thus auto makers have put extra effort into good locks. Some hardware store deadbolts are so bad you anyone can pick them with lock picks - no instructions needed. Only the best deadbolts are equal what a car has. Likewise breaking a car window is typically harder than breaking a house window.
Likewise breaking a car window is typically harder than breaking a house window.
All it takes to break a car window is a single tap. There's specific tools available, or someone can just use a shard of ceramic. Shatters completely and instantly.
$10 on Amazon. Or just a piece of broken spark plug. Anyone who seriously wants to break a car window will have something handy.
Or maybe thieves are just walking down the street and see a fancy bag on a seat and a rock and just decide to do the deed on a whim and get foiled by tempered glass. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
I love my August smart lock. It auto-unlocks my door when I get home, so I never need keys or to reach for my phone. It also has a key pad to unlock if I dont have my phone. It has alerts and reports status on an app. I can unlock or lock the door remotely for people to check in on things for me while Im away.
Yes, it has issues and eats batteries, but its so convenient.
Researched a bit into this some time back and I was not convinced.
It would be nice to have a lock I could assign entry codes for different users and still have a physical key as an emergency backup but the obcession with these locks being tied to an app and/or internet discouraged me.
I stayed with purely mechanical locks with complex keys and secondary arms that make the task to break down a door much harder.
Don’t know how it is in other countries but I’ve been to shops where I specifically asked for locks that would give a locksmith a bad time to pick and was shown a few models where the only way to break it was to put a whole cutter to it and cut out the entire drum.
My door lock is a smart lock but I disabled all ability to unlock it remotely with an air gap. It gives me the ability to use the keypad to lock/unlock without any security holes added.
My smart home system knows it’s state too, so I can have it make a chime or alarm if the door is unlocked at certain times. Great for alerting us that our toddler is playing with the door again.
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