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Simplisafe adds to its security repertoire with much-anticipated smart home lock

Clayton Moore
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Simplisafe has been around for over a decade, founded by a pair of Harvard Business School students with good intentions, but their bread and butter has always been basic home security, although the company added functionality for the popular Nest thermostat a few years ago.

Now it looks like the company is jumping more fully into the smart home security market with a long-rumored new smart lock to complement its current home security products, and the company claims it is offering the world’s thinnest smart home lock. It’s going to sell at retail for $100 or so and for those who are hot for it, it will go on sale first at Simplisafe’s website on September 15 before becoming an exclusive product on the physical retail market at Best Buy, where pre-orders will start on October 1 and the product is expected to land on store shelves by the middle of the month.

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The lock itself is seriously tiny, less than an inch thick, and is designed specifically to protect against unlocked entry points — most people’s front door. It’s a pretty simple but very useful smart home gizmo that features remote locking and unlocking, personalized PIN codes for household members, unique temporary guest PINs for the Airbnb crowd, and an auto-lock feature that engages after your dumb burglar tries to crack the code too many times.

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“Many smart locks are large and bulky — they stick out from the door, physically and visually,” Dirk Ahlgrim, Simplisafe’s head of design, said in a release. “We designed the Simplisafe Smart Lock to be slim and modern, as well as easy and fast to install.”

Simplisafe is also doing its best to keep up with the smart home market because its nifty new lock is also pretty. It’s being offered in three stylish color combinations that include the silverish nickel, a sky-blue cloud, and jet-black obsidian. It connects automatically with the Simplisafe Video Doorbell Pro and the Simplisafe Security Camera to push alerts whenever anyone approaches your home. Kick on the command “Alexa, arm Simplisafe,” and either Google Assistant or the Simplisafe app will arm every sensor-guarded door, window, motion sensors, and lock the doors.

“Imagine being able to lock down your home from anywhere,” Chad Laurans, Simplisafe’s founder and CEO, said in a statement. “With the Simplisafe Smart Lock and SimpliLock automatic lock timer, you’ll always know your home is safe. You’ll never have to sit through a meeting worrying about whether you left the front door unlocked. You’ll never have to stay home for a contractor again, or panic when your child leaves her backpack at school with the house key inside.”

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Clayton Moore
Clayton Moore
Contributor
Clayton Moore’s interest in technology is deeply rooted in the work of writers like Warren Ellis, Cory Doctorow and Neal…
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