How to choose smart lock in the year of 2022?

Nowadays, there is various different types of smart locks in the market. A lot of people has little knowledge in smart lock area. It is quite easy for them to choose an unsuitable smart lock.

Compared with the traditional lock, the price of smart lock is also more expensive, in order to avoid choosing the wrong products. I will introduce how to buy smart lock, avoid mistakes, so as to spend the less money, less time to buy the most suitable, the most safe and reliable smart lock! 

Directory

A. Is it really necessary to buy a smart lock?

B. What should you consider when buying a smart lock?

C. FAQ

A. Is it really necessary to buy a smart lock?

Of course, it is! Very necessary! Very very necessary!

Compared with traditional door lock, these are very common problems in our lives. Forgot to take my keys, worried about not locking the door, keys are very easy to get lost by the old man and child.  When a distant relatives or friends come to your home, no one at home, nobody can open the door. Smart locks can be a very good solution to all these problems, today let's talk about how to choose smart locks? 

What is a smart lock?

Smart lock is different from traditional door lock, can be simple to understand:  smart lock = traditional locks + electronic control switch. While traditional door lock need to use a key to open a door. In addition to the mechanical keys, smart lock unlock the door, with password and fingerprint, NFC, APP, such as "electronic key", its inner lock and structural is the same as mechanical lock.

B. What should you consider when buying a smart lock?

Although smart lock price range is very big, can be from 100~1000USD, it is very difficult for the ordinary consumers to make judgement on what's the difference between them. Here, introduce some of the core indicators of smart locks. When you buy a smart lock, you can judge the quality of the smart lock by these core indicators.  

To put it simply, we need to consider security and convenience comprehensively.

1. Security: 

The birth of smart lock, not only because we are the group of people with bad memory who often forget to take the key, more important thing is because traditional door lock is not anti-theft, the door technology of the thief is more and more skilled, basically it only takes some minutes to open a door lock.  It's not that using a smart lock will prevent theft, but that it will take thieves more time. 

1.1 Lock Cylinder

Generally, family door lock can be divided into A/B/C three grades. The higher grade of the difficulty of cracking is also higher, and the smart lock adopt grade C cylinder. In the market, dozens of dollars of traditional locks are using grade-A cylinder, the protection level is very low, when encountering very skillful thief, they can open the door lock in several seconds. Below I will give you unlocking time of different grade cylinder.

Here want to explain: there is no so-called security lock, mechanical lock or smart locks, when you are facing a very skillful thief, both can be opened. The only difference is unlocking time, after all, the thief also needs to consider the cost. There is an unwritten saying in the industry, as long as in one minute you cannot open locks, basically, the thief would give up, after all, the thief also was afraid of being caught. 

Grade A Cylinder: the internal structure is very simple, it is very easy to pry open the grade-A cylinder, it can be unlocked by a skillful thief within 1 minute, without the slightest anti-pry anti-theft function.  Traditional locks are mostly grade-A.  That's why so many homes have been burgled.

Grade-B Cylinder: different from grade-A and B cylinder,  it has double row pin groove, the main type includes computer double row cylinder, crescent double row cylinder etc., relatively safe, the lock cylinder will be taken down less than 7 minutes. 

Grade-C Cylinder: complex structure, the unlock time of cylinder, theoretically can reach more than 270 minutes.  If you want to use violence to open the lock, the inside of cylinder will be damaged, so that the thief cannot open the lock.  However, our owner can open the house with a matching traditional lock without worrying about entering the house when the smart lock is damaged by external forces. 

Therefore, grade-C cylinder has the highest anti-theft and the best safety performance.  And the smart lock is using grade-C cylinder, so the smart lock has its special advantages in difficulty of cracking and the cracking time. 

1.2 Lock Body

The lock body on the market at present, can be divided into 3 types: Wang Li lock body, standard lock body, and overlord lock body.  Wang Li lock belongs to non - national standard lock, the last two belong to the national standard lock.

Standard lock body: also known as 6068 lock body, smart locks on the market are basically using this mortise.  Good safety performance, installation is also convenient, just to provide the general parameters and characteristics to customer service (door direction, there is no heaven and earth hook, etc.), then you can buy it.

Overlord lock body: On the basis of the standard lock body, two reverse lock tongue is added, which is larger. It generally needs to pay an extra fee when installing. And some smart locks do not support changing to overlord lock body.

• But in fact, overlord lock body anti-theft ability is not higher than ordinary lock, you can decide whether to install it according to your actual demand. 

• Does it have heaven and earth hooks? 

• We all know that the heaven and earth hook is an important part of the security door, and it makes the door lock more secure by adding the locking point, but it is not recommended to keep the heaven/earth hook when installing the smart lock. 

If you use the hook, in case of an emergency, the hook will affect the time of rescue.  Under normal circumstances, once the hook of heaven and earth is damaged or not works well, it is very troublesome, and this is not a mandatory option. It can be hung on the hook, and the technician will also install the hook according to the actual situation.

1.3 True or Fake Mortise (Knowledge)

True or fake mortise in actual use cases does not affect the security of the door lock, we can choose any one.

The so-called true mortise is the mortise run through the lock body perpendicularly, while the fake mortise is the mortise separated from the lock body, generally from the following insert through the linkage bar to push the lock body to unlock, the structure is different only. 

The main reason why people criticize the fake mortise is that after the panel is damaged, it can be unlocked by flipping the lock body with a screwdriver from the bottom side of lock body.  And the true mortise is the mortise is still through the lock body after the panel is damaged, still has grade-C protection ability.  From this point of view, true mortise is better than fake mortise. 

But the biggest assumption is the panels were destroyed, and now they're all aluminum, zinc, space aluminum.  If you want to destroy the panel: 

1. The material is hard and difficult to destroy 

2. Very loud voice and working intensity.  For ordinary thieves, they want to open the door very quickly, so they don't usually do it. 

3 if you have chosen to open the lock by violence, it is not the lock can prevent it. You should digest what I said. 

4. Smart door locks are now basically with anti-pry alarm and violence unlock alarm functions. 

So, really, really, really do not care too much about the true or fake mortise. 

1.4 Anti-peephole Open

If there is a peep hole on the door, be sure to choose anti-peep hole open smart lock. 

The principle of peep hole unlocking is to remove the peep hole lens, and then through the peep hole, put the tool in, hook the door handle and press, easily open the door from the inside.  See photo as below: 

At present, there are three kinds of anti-peep hole open design:

  (a) Mechanical Press:

There is a button on the safety handle of the door, which needs to be unlocked by pressing the button and the door handle at the same time. Pressing the door handle alone cannot open the door, but only turns the door handle.  Just like a car is inneutral, when you don’t press the button, even the driver stepped on the gas, he cannot make the car move, press the button means: you have change the gears of the car, then step on the gas, the car can move. 

  (b) Mechanical Switch:

There is a lock button that can be moved left and right on the panel under the door handle. After being locked, the door handle cannot be pressed down or opened from the inside through the door handle.  However, the door can be unlocked externally, so it is not only anti-peep hole open, but also safe. 

Both of these methods are effective in preventing the lock from being opened through the peephole, as well as in preventing the lock from being opened by children and big dogs.  Anyone with small children or pets knows that they can unlock the door in a short time. 

  (c) Anti-peephole Open Naturally:

Go through peephole to open the door, it needs a point of strength/force. Generally, if a lock adopt no-door handle design, and then use induction or knob from the inside to open the door, so it prevent peephole open naturally. This design is usually found in fully automatic door locks. 

1.5 Fingerprint Identification Mode

Compared with traditional locks, fingerprint identification is an advantage of smart locks.  Fingerprint identification can be divided into optical identification and semiconductor identification. 

Optical identification: the use of optical reaction to achieve fingerprint imaging, such as company attendance machine.  But if the finger appears dead skin, scratches and other problems, it is difficult to identify. 

On top of that, if your fingerprints are accidentally taken by someone with ulterior motives, the consequences can be disastrous. 

Semiconductor identification: the use of potential difference of volage to achieve fingerprint imaging, during fingerprint identification, it will also detect fingerprint temperature, pressure, electric field and other factors, with bio-detection properties, higher anti-theft coefficient. 

And it also has a key advantage: it has good fault tolerance,  for example, you accidentally scratched the finger, optical fingerprint recognition might not to come out, but the semiconductor identification at the time of input fingerprint, through the circuits inside, have certain fingerprint repair function, small minor wound, will not affect the fingerprint recognition accuracy.  At the same time, it can avoid hand dead skin, scratches and other problems caused by fingerprint identification difficulties. 

So when installing smart locks, we advised to use the semiconductor identification mode with 1^st priority.

Still have a kind of higher security locking mode - refers to the finger vein identification, using the theory: hemoglobin in the vein blood can absorb near infrared, through near infrared radiation, to get the finger vein image, which can identify the internal biometric property. This technology collect human body biological features, and veins usually won't change,  So safety and stability are very high. 

This technology has been widely used in security fields such as finance and education in recent years. In the vein Identification Industry Research Report 2020, China Institute of Electronic Technology Standardization pointed out that the replication and forgery of vein identification technology is more difficult than other biometric identification technologies: 

And in the identification of accuracy and ease of use, also has a very good performance: 

1.6 Anti-black box Cracking

The so-called black box is: a thief use high voltage machine to generate electromagnetic pulse and it interference the lock circuit , lead to circuit overload and re-start door lock. At present, big manufacturer add protection circuit module into a smart lock. Even restart the door lock, the door is still closed, and the door lock installed isolation device of shock wave, the little black box is useless,  Only a few small brand enterprises, cheat on workmanship and materials, cracked by small black box. 

Therefore, it is necessary to choose a reliable brand, because high-quality smart locks will have electromagnetic protection design on the structure of the lock, and the lock itself will use thick metal plate to do electromagnetic shielding, and the circuit board is also multi-layer PCB design. 

1.7 Hijacking-password or Hijacking-fingerprint

This feature selects a string of passwords (or special fingerprint)as "alarm passwords" when entering passwords. 

If you meet the gunman hijacked, force you into the house, you can use the "alarm password" open the door, the door will open normally, but your family will receive a notification for help, if with a camera, family can ensure that you are safe at present, so as to protect yourself. You will hardly use this function, but when you are using it, it will save your life.

1.8 Scramble Code

The normal fingerprint lock password is six digits, the number of digits of scramble code is not limited when entering the password, as long as there is a continuous correct password, you can open the door.

If you don't have a scramble code, then when you enter your password, someone who has ulterior motives can see your input password. Now you have this function, even someone see your password when you are entering it. He don’t know the the number of digits of your password. So you can imagine the importance of scramble code.  

For example, if your password is 578964, even you type 1234578964, you can also open the door, it can protect someone else from peeping your password. 

1.9 Anti-prizing Alarm

When system detect that someone is picking a lock violently, the lock will send out a high-pitched alarm.

If your house is targeted by a thief, thief uses violence to pick the lock to open it. Now many entry-level smart locks are equipped with anti-prizing alarm. If someone picks the lock, it will send you a message to your mobile phone, so as to give your home an extra protection. 

Other various reminder functions: 

• Try the reminder 

• Do not try to remind 

• Open door reminder 

• Unlocked alerts 

Pay attention to: reminders can be divided into APP or SMS online reminders, alarm reminders issued by the lock body itself, and three simultaneous reminders. 

2. Convenience:

2.1 Power Supply

The battery is divided into dry battery and lithium battery. Generally, the smart lock is mainly powered by dry battery, with 4-8 no. 5 batteries.  The choice of battery must be alkaline dry battery, and different old and new degree of battery do not mix for use. 

• A group of 4pcs No. 5 batteries (generally lasting time is 6-12 months) 

• Two groups of 4pcs No. 5 batteries (8 batteries, 4 batteries in a group, in turn to supply power) 

• A group of 8 batteries provides power.

Do not choose the double pack of 4pcs No. 5 batteries: there is a risk of leakage.  The way it works is: when one group of battery runs out, it switches to the next, and previous group of batteries which run out of power are still in battery compartments. The battery will have leakage issue when they stay there for a very long time. How do you distinguish? You can check the remarks, if it says 8 x 5 battery power or 4 x 5 battery power expandable to 8. 

So we recommended that if you choose a double group of 4pcs No. 5 batteries, just only use one group of batteries.

You only need think about battery capacity of lithium batteries: 

The lithium-ion battery for smart door locks is the same as the lithium-ion battery for mobile phones.  It is usually used in fully automatic door lock which has large power consumption. So there will be a problem, the lasting time of battery will become shorter and shorter after lithium battery has been used for a long time. 

Usually, the smart lock can last more than one year.  In case you forget to charge it, it's best to buy one with a low battery warning function.  In addition, there must be an emergency charging port, and if the lithium battery fails, it can be temporarily recharged by power bank. 

2.2 Facial Recognition

If you choose to unlock with face recognition, be sure to choose 3D face recognition, because this is safest.  It uses 3D structured light to model faces, like facial payments on mobile phones, and is technically safer.  It's horrible thing that someone just us one of your photo or a video to open your door.

2.3 ID Card Unlock

Generally, elder people and children whose fingerprint is not good for fingerprint identification can use ID card to open the door.It is best to choose encrypted CPU cards, because they are not easy to be copied, and ordinary cards are very easy to be copied. 

2.4 NFC Unlock

• One is the NFC magnetic card unlocking, which only supports the NFC magnetic card unlocking, but does not support the bracelet and mobile phone NFC.  This is also a copy - proof card. 

• The other is NFC unlock: support mobile phone, bracelet, and NFC magnetic card unlock. 

2.5 For Smart Home Use

Smart door lock as a single product of smart home, and smart home connection is a very important reference factor to choose smart door lock. 

If you have a lock which can connect to smart home system, when you open the door at home, the room light, TV and air conditioner will be turned on. The sweeping robot will start to work.  A good smart lock can enhance your wonderful experience in smart home.

At present, the ecological system of smart lock includes: 

• TUYA

• TTLock

• Huawei HiLink 

• XIAO MI

• And other smart home manufacturers.

Considering from a long-term application, if you want to do smart home in the future, you can buy it in advance, after all, the speed of smart home development will soon enter thousands of households.

2.6 Wireless Technology for Smart Lock

Wireless connection modes are generally divided into Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and ZigBee, which are also called communication protocols. 

• Wi-Fi can be directly connected to the Internet, so you can usually send a password through the app to unlock the lock. 

• Bluetooth and ZigBee can't connect directly to the web, so you usually need to use a gateway for remote functionality. 

C. FAQ

1. The more ways to open the door, the better?

In fact, the more ways to unlock the door, the more methods to crack it. In practice, the most popular ways of unlocking is: fingerprint unlock, remote unlock and password unlock. The three types can meet most of people’s needs. 

The elderly: Considering that the elderly are in old age, their memory is not very good, often forget to take the key, password also cannot remember, so the fingerprint unlock and face recognition of smart lock is suitable for the elderly group.  Some door locks also have a ID card opening function.

Guest: When we are outside, but there are guests to visit, especially important guests, we can unlock the door lock remotely by using mobile phone App and set a temporary password, so that the guests do not have to wait outside the door. 

Young people: For young people, Bluetooth recognition, mobile apps, password unlocking and other methods are more suitable.  Even if there is a special problem, the key of the smart lock can also open the door in an emergency, ensuring its safety performance. 

2. If you buy a smart lock, "semi-automatic" or "fully automatic" ? which is better?

Fully-automatic operating system: when the fully-automatic operating system is used, you only need one touch: touch screen gently with your finger fingerprint, you can complete all the steps to unlock the door, the door will automatically open, and after closing the door, it will immediately lock the door, do not worry about forgetting to lock the door. 

Semi-automatic operating system: Semi-automatic operating system refers to the fingerprint, password or other ways of unlocking, need to press the door handle to open the door. 

• The fully-automatic smart lock is easy to operate and can lock the door automatically, to prevent forgetting to close the door, so it is more suitable for the elderly people with poor memory. 

• For those who prefer to locking their doors by handle, a semi-automatic option is available. 

Although the fully-automatic operating system is more intelligent and convenient, but the semi-automatic smart lock is more stable, and its price is relatively cheaper, you can choose one of these two kinds of operating systems, according to the actual needs and personal preferences.

Generally speaking, if price is over 400USD, you can choose fully-automatic door lock, if price is less than 400USD, you can consider semi-automatic ones. 

3. What if the smart lock runs out of battery?

Generally speaking, most of the smart locks will have a low battery reminder, and when the reminder appears, be sure to change the battery to avoid battery run out.  

If there was not any power in the battery at all, first of all, you can use mechanical key to open the door. We suggest you keep a key in a safe place for back-up. In the worst case,  you don’t have key, either. Usually, smart lock has a emergency power supply socket, use power bank to recharge the door lock. Even the smart lock don’t have emergency power supply socket,  then you have to ask the lockpicking company to pick the lock. 

4. What are the reliable brands of smart door locks?

I sorted out a few brands that I think are highly recognized and of good quality in the industry, for your reference: 

Philips: one of the world famous intelligent electronic brands, was founded in the Netherlands in 1891. 

High-end positioning, no fancy function, exquisite workmanship, details in place, strong stability, pro feel great, high-end smart lock is the only choice. 

Gateman: Korea electronic lock brand, the old brand of smart lock also belongs to ASSA ABLOY. 

High-end positioning, with the top quality and technology, automatic push and pull lock preferred Gateman 

KOTONLINK: Local Chinese smart locks company. Low-end and middle-end positioning, high price-quality ratio!  In recent years, product stability has been gradually improved.

Allegion: headquartered in Dublin, was founded on December 2, 2013 and went public on the New York Stock Exchange (SYMBOL: ALLE) on December 9, 2013. 

As a global supplier of commercial and civil security products and services, Allegion has more than 7,800 employees worldwide and its products are sold in more than 120 countries and regions.  Allegion has 23 internationally recognized security brands with the following strategic brands: CISA®, Interflex®, LCN®, Schlage® and Von Duprin®.