How to Shop for a Smart Lock (2024)

You mightiness already person a astute location hub if you person certain astute speakers similar an Amazon Echo (4th Gen) ($100) oregon smart displays similar the Amazon Echo Show 8 (3rd Gen) ($150). If you're an Apple HomeKit user, you mightiness person a HomePod oregon Apple TV to enactment arsenic your home's hub, but HomeKit compatibility is overmuch trickier than much communal options similar Zigbee and Z-Wave, oregon choosing Amazon and Google.

Do You Want Multiple Codes?

Entry oregon entree codes, successful my opinion, are 1 of the champion parts of astute locks. Not each astute locks travel with one, but astir person an accessory keypad you tin adhd connected and spot wherever you privation connected the exterior of your home. While a integer fastener lets you acceptable a azygous code, a smart fastener app volition fto you make aggregate codes and delegate them to definite people, and acceptable limits connected the codification use, truthful you tin springiness a codification to your canine walker oregon your favourite neighbour and cognize erstwhile they usage it to participate your home. It makes it casual to revoke codes without needing your full household to accommodate to a codification change.

Some locks, similar the Ultraloq U-Bolt Pro ($109) and Schlage Encode Plus ($319), travel with a keypad built into the beforehand of the lock, but others necessitate purchasing the add-on keypad. If codes are a cardinal diagnostic for you, prioritize a fastener with an attached keypad truthful you don't person to walk other cash, oregon interest astir installing 2 things alternatively of one.

Do You Want Biometric oregon Keyless Entry?

The existent aboriginal is nary keys oregon codes astatine all! There are a fewer locks that fto you unlock your beforehand doorway with a property of your fingerprint. Some, similar the Ultraloq mentioned above, see the fingerprint scholar built into the fastener itself, portion immoderate person outer keypads, similar the Abode Lock, with a biometric scholar connected it. I similar utilizing it arsenic a one-touch unfastened if I don't person my keys handy, and it's surely faster than typing a code.

Most astute locks bash person a keyhole, and I'd urge sticking to ones that connection it. Smart locks tally connected batteries (more connected this below), truthful it's bully to person the battery-free backup of a carnal cardinal if you tally retired of artillery power. (Locks volition alert you astir debased artillery beingness successful advance, but I'm a procrastinator, truthful I cognize however this communicative volition go.) Some locks usage your phone's geofencing to alert it to unlock your door, truthful if your telephone dies, you could besides suffer the convenience you're looking for and request a abstracted entree option.

Do You Have Other Entry Points?

If you're funny successful getting a astute fastener connected a doorway without a deadbolt, oregon adjacent a sliding door, bully news! There are options for you too. Schlage, for example, makes the Encode Level ($310) designed for doors without an existing deadbolt. Instead, it adds a keyhole successful the doorknob on with a keypad. You tin besides adhd astute location power for your store with MyQ's Smart Garage Door Openers (8/10, WIRED Recommends), and you tin adhd a keypad to it.

What About Battery Life? Hidden Fees?

All those astute tricks request a powerfulness source: batteries. Most astute locks committedness a artillery beingness of astatine slightest a fewer months, if not the amended portion of a year, but show depends connected however hard the fastener is working—more predominant requests and automations volition people drain the artillery a small faster implicit time. Either way, beryllium prepared to complaint oregon regenerate batteries successful your astute lock. Some person ways to foodstuff up the fastener if it's wholly dead—the Ultraloq U-Bolt Pro, for example, has a hidden MicroUSB larboard astatine the bottommost if it needs foodstuff successful a pinch.

Some locks besides person features hidden down subscription fees. The Abode comes to caput for this—it offers notifications that your fastener was activated, but it doesn't clarify if it was unlocked oregon locked. You person to motion up for 1 of Abode's subscription plans for that perk, and it's besides the lone mode to usage it with different astute location devices. This isn't ace communal with astute locks—Abode is besides a astute location information company, truthful its subscription interest works with respective different products beyond the locks—but it's worthy keeping an oculus out.