If you tend to lose your keys, you may have experimented with different keyless locks. If you’re a smart home adopter, however, you’ve largely been out of luck — plenty of smart locks have come out, but the majority retain the outdated metal key.
Kwikset is hoping to change that, and has unveiled its latest smart lock. The lock does away with the key and has one single form of input: a touchpad. You’ll never need to carry a key again!
While the lock has a touchpad, it also has a Z-Wave connection, so you could theoretically even unlock it simply by having your phone on you, if you so choose. Considering it can connect to a smart home hub, unlocking your door could also trigger other events, like the lights turning on, or music starting up.
Kwikset thinks that smart locks like this could be far safer than traditional locks, doing away with break-in methods like lock picking. Sure, if your phone unlocks your door someone could steal your phone and get into your house, but that was already the case with keys — have them stolen and the thief has free access.
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There is one potential issue with the lock though: What happens in a power outage? Are you just locked out? Thankfully, no, you’re not. Kwikset’s lock relies on four AA batteries, and the company says this will get you through a full year. When they start to run out, an indicator will let you know to replace the batteries. You can also slap in a 9V battery as a backup, so if you’re paying enough attention, you should never really be locked out because of dead batteries.
There are a few other keyless locks out there: Yale, for example, which also has Z-Wave. Kwikset’s, however, has a much more modern design.
Despite keyless locks certainly seeming like wave of the future, it still feels like they’re not capable of completely replacing all our locks just yet. Kwikset’s new lock seems great; however, it will be interesting to see what comes next. Fingerprint-based locks, maybe? Or perhaps we’ll finally go full Star Trek and get locks with retinal scanners.
Updated on 04-12-2016 by Christian de Looper: Added info about Yale having Z-Wave.