They have their conveniences but I want to get this lock. It’s design makes picking next to impossible. Lpl couldn’t even get it. youtu.be/qV8QKZNFxLw?si=1WCdQCktVfGhJtsm
And most dumb locks can also be picked in under 5 minutes. The difference is a smart lock can alert me when someone who isn’t me opens the door or leaves it open. Of course, most burglars are just going to break a window to get in.
Funnily enough, if you have the best lock they’ll just break your door or window instead.
Much cheaper to replace a lock than the entire front door.
Something to keep in mind, also lots of smart locks down have a keyhole to pick, so they would actually increase your security when compared to most regular lockset.
You want them to break in for insurance purposes though, it’s a clear indication of unauthorized entry. Your policy should cover the door/window, but if your lock gets picked/bypassed you’re going to have a rough time getting things covered.
A previous owner of my apartment had for some reason installed a high security door. It’s 5 inches thick with steel plates inside and has 3 separate sets of 3 locking rods like a bank vault. Not sure what line of work they were in but, really, good luck to the person who thinks they can break in here easily. Downside is there is no way to put a digital lock on the sucker.
Firefighters train for exactly such scenarios and will happily go through a nearby wall. The cops struggle with armored doors, but the guys with axes don’t bother.
My smart lock doesn’t change the locking mechanisms. It’s basically a robot on the inside that turns the lock like you would. The only security issue would have to be software side, which a typical thief isn’t going to bother with especially since you cost tell from the outside that’s it’s not a normal lock - because it is.
I agree that most thieves won’t bother - but they do now have the additional option to hack it, making the lock less secure in total, not to mention the flawed mechanical design many of those smart locks have.
Yeah I’m just saying in my case they have no way of seeing that it’s a smart lock at all. The only smart part is an attachment on the interior side. So mechanically it’s 100% the same, and there is no visible indication that is “hackable,” even if it were. My door and it’s lock look as just like it did 15 years ago.
most of the smart locks that are supposed to be drop in replacements for traditional locks are mostly trash.
Personally been eyeing upgrading to UI’s access readers, but it lacks features like door unlock with Apple Homekey (for now anyways since it requires some specialty hardware). So been holding off.
This particular product is geared towards small business and large enterprises. But can be setup for home usage if you have to technical expertise.
I have a smart lock and tbh hate it. I’m not sure the security difference, but it’s more inconvenient than a key, takes longer, needs me to pull out my phone, open an app and then I can unlock my front door.
Unfortunately getting away from them in moderately upscale apartments is getting harder and harder.
I absolutely love my smart lock. It has auto-unlock when I arrive home after leaving the neighborhood, so I never have to use a key or a phone app. It also has a key pad, so if my phone is not on me or is dead or whatever I can still punch in a code. And I can both check the lock status AND door open status anywhere I am in the world if I have wifi or cell data. I can remotely unlock the door to let in my housekeeper if I am at the office without giving her a code. I can also lock it when she leaves.
That’s a much more fancy one than mine then. The only feature I have is remote unlocking. Nothing else you mentioned is a feature of mine, so that may make sense why I dislike them.
I’m not even able to lock my door remotely, let alone check status or if it’s open. The only way to lock the door is physically using the deadbolt from the inside, the app offers no way to do it.
Yeah, it’s not great. The door had a keyhole so when I signed the lease I was really expecting to be given a physical key to unlock the door, but they wouldn’t even give us those.
A fully featured lock might be worth it, but with the one I have now it’s not great.
If it’s internet connected it’s considered a smart lock imo. I’m not sure what distinction you’re trying to make.
Anything that requires the use of my phone for something that could be done just as well with a physical item is a bad product imo. I don’t read on my phone, I don’t ever want my phone to be my car key, I don’t like having smart devices in my home.
I have an august lock that has auto unlock but the Bluetooth radio is so weak it never unlocks. I usually use Siri on my watch to lock/unlock. Next place hopefully I can get one of those homekey tap to unlock ones.
I hope you didn’t pay much for your lock if you can’t even lock it with the app, that’s a huge deal breaker. I don’t remember the last time I used a key.
I live in an apartment building, so I had no choice in the lock, but also didn’t pay for it.
Never tried Siri for it, but I also have Siri disabled on my phone. The watch app is a PoS with this and doesn’t work unless you open the app on the phone too.
I’m sure there’s better options out there, and my sample does seem to be a pretty low quality one, but I just don’t really find a need for one. I’d much rather have a physical key tbh. I’ve almost been locked out because I don’t always take my phone when running the trash out and I’ve bumped the front of the lock with my back and it auto locks me out.
One thing people aren’t considering is that if we assume that it’s relatively trivial to bypass either a classic lock or a smart lock, only one of the two is likely to give your phone a notification that it’s been opened in your absence.
Do they have a small battery? Because it is a common practice to cut down electricity when someone intends to break in your house, even with that backup source of power I guess the lack of electricity would mean no Internet anyway.
Mine runs on 4x AA batteries, which lasts a very long time. On the order of a year. Cutting electricity would indeed prevent the notification, but a dumb lock couldn’t send one even with all the power in the world.
Plus, in a shared apartment/condo building the power is much less likely to be cut and in a freestanding home one could theoretically put their network on a UPS so any notifications would still go out.
freestanding home one could theoretically put their network on a UPS so any notifications would still go out.
I have a UPS attached to my Synology NAS, and every time the unit is triggered it sends a notification (kinda, now that I think about it, how is it sent if no power electricity 🤔) so the NAS advises me that can’t ping to Synology after several minutes, is that what you mean?
I mean that if you have a cable modem and wireless router on a UPS, your internet should stay up unless the burglar also cuts the cable (much less likely).
Ahh yeah, that was me overthinking, pretty neat simple solution I have been wanting to do that since forever, hopefully a robber won’t be the cause of me finally doing it 😅
Haha yeah, the whole thing is a risk calculation that you can take all the way down the rabbit hole. But having network on UPS has other uses too, at least.
Fun fact, broken windows very rarely alert neighbors to a burglary. They’re not terrible at alerting the home owner, but unless a neighbor connects a second, overtly thievish sound to the crack of broken glass, they will usually go about their day. It’s not even the bystander effect, most people just don’t know what a burglary sounds like.
I put that 3M film on all my accessible windows and doors. It takes 3-4 hits with a sledge to get through. Thieves don't come prepaired for that and even if they are, the alarm would go off on the first hit. It's also a very loud noise and an extra minute of smashing on a populated downtown street. Well worth the extra cost.
well, what do you do if it runs out of battery? electric locks really only make sense on gates and doors in apartment blocks, where it’s okay to have it just default to open in case of failure.
How bad some of the “secure” backup locks are or the failsafe mechanics of those or even just the software of not even cheap products are most of the time real bad and just adds more fail points.
I pick locks as a hobby. Your door lock is almost never the point of attack. It’s way easier to break the door or windows. Only time picking would be useful is if you need to conceal that you’ve entered, which burglars don’t typically care about.
It’s more secure as in I can’t forget to not lock the door, since it auto-locks. Also I can’t lock myself out of the house if I leave my keys inside, which I have done in the past lol. As the other nerds in here have said, it probably won’t keep you any safer against people breaking in though, but I think of it in terms of convenience.
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.
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