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Having groceries delivered to your home is convenient, but if taking food from the front door to the kitchen is too much hassle, then Walmart has a solution. It is launching a new service, InHome Delivery, which involves a representative placing groc...
The landlords of one Manhattan apartment building have been ordered to provide physical keys to tenants who don't want to use smart locks. The decision was reached in a settlement after tenants sued their landlord for installing Latch smart locks las...
After smart home security company August was acquired by Assa Abloy (smartlock outfit Yale's parent company) back in 2017, many assumed the business would disappear in a consolidation of the smart lock market. But now, over a year since the August br...
Getting locked out is a thing of the past. Growing up, I can’t tell you how many times I lost the keys to my house. Smart Door alleviates the stress and nuisance of using a key to enter the home. Designed to appeal to the younger generation of homeowners, Smart Lock is beautifully designed to welcome home the creative inside you.
The overall design aesthetic is simple and minimal, ensuring it does not evade the look of the front door – not limiting the Smart Lock to a specific environment. The material combinations are complementary – the exterior showing an anodized aluminum in either a rose gold or space grey finish while the interior is a ribbed, powder coated ABS, soft to the touch for a premium feel and experience.
The Smart Lock is simple in design and simple in usage. To begin usage, raise the top of the handle up to uncover the pin pad and fingerprint scanner. Once the lock is disabled, the door can be opened via the lower handle. This is done on a push or pull system depending on the orientation of the door itself. To prevent and full lockouts due to an electrical fault, there is an emergency keyhole in the base of the handle, discoverable by sliding down a cover.
You don’t need to spend a lot of money in order to set yourself up with a smart home. Today you can find great gadgets that will make your home smarter without breaking your piggy bank. From controlling your lights to feeding your pet, a good smart home is all about delegating your daily tasks to a device, and making your life easier overall.
Making your home smarter doesn’t mean neglecting your home safety. Today you can find lots of smart-locks solutions that will transform your old fashioned door lock to an innovative one. Some smart locks will be operated by wifi, while others via Bluetooth; but all smart locks in this list have one thing in common: They are easy to install and use a better encryption to increase digital security.
Schlage Connect – Touchscreen Deadbolt With alarm
Schlage locks are on of the better known and loved home locks. They have been around for almost 90 years. You can be be sure that there locks are powerful, sturdy and up to the task. The Schlage locks are all about luxury and giving you the best experience in smart home locks. It’s relatively easy to install & use. Using the Z-wave technology, it can connect you remotely via the web or your smartphone to your home and lets you lock or unlock your door remotely.
Kwikset Kevo Touch-to-Open Bluetooth Smart Lock
With Kwikset lock, your Smartphone is also your key. This Bluetooth lock has a cool feature: Kevo will recognize you approaching your front door and will unlock when touched, so your phone can stay in your pocket or purse. Kevo also offers an advanced SmartKey security which provides a strong resistance against lock picking and lock bumping.
Yale Real Living Keyless Touchscreen Deadbolt with Z-Wave
The Yale lock is easy and fast to install using a screwdriver on standard doors. You can store in this lock up to 250 Pin codes, so you can create one code for each user. It also has a privacy mode (all code lockout), a voice guided programming in 3 languages. Unlocking and locking your house is super easy using its backlit touchscreen keypad. The Yale lock has classic look for those who aren’t fans of hi-tech designs.
August Smart Lock
This is probably the most techie looking lock on the list. The August lock converts your smartphone to your smart key. Using your smartphone, you can lock and unlock your door, control who has access and who doesn’t, as well as other neat features.
ZKTeco Bluetooth Biometric Door Lock
We close our list with a relative newcomer. With the ZKTeco lock, you have a keyless access to your home using your iOS or Android smartphone. You can also keep track of visitors, see a detailed log of who has entered and exited your home and a lot more interesting data. If love analysing and crunching digits over meaningless things, this is the perfect lock for you.
The August Smart Lock is not new. We reviewed it way back in 2014, and for the most part, everything we mentioned then still applies. The lock is still super easy to install, and it still works with deadbolts, not knobs. Most importantly, using an ap...
Locking and unlocking doors has become part of our daily lives, and just when keys seemed to be here to stay, two Stanford students proved us otherwise. Sesame is a smart lock that works with many types of deadbolts and relies on wireless connectivity to open doors.
Che-Ming Ku, a robotics student at Stanford, and Jongho Shin, a cybersecurity student at the same university, launched last month a crowdfunding campaign for their invention. Candy House Inc., as the startup created by these two geniuses is called, made a name for itself when the Kickstarter project raised north of $1.4M, more than 14 times the funding goal.
“Technology is changing so rapidly these days, and you’re likely to upgrade your phone every year,” explained Ku, “but you’re probably not going to change your lock every year because a new and improved digital lock is available. Sesame lets you upgrade your lock without any hassle.”
One of the main purposes of Candy House was to make the Sesame smart lock as simple and intuitive to use as possible. That easy that you could even provide access to friends, or restrict access for uninvited guests. Hackers are not an issue, as Sesame features AES 256-bit military-grade encryption. Using an additional Wi-Fi access point, users can connect Sesame to their local Wi-Fi network and open the door remotely, in case the situation requires it.
“With many of these types of devices, there’s a learning curve that gets in the way,” added Ku. “Sesame is extremely easy to install and works with almost any deadbolt.”
There are several ways users can unlock their door using Sesame and a smartphone. First of all, there’s a companion app for iOS and Android. Next, people can set Sesame to unlock the door when a secret knock is performed either on the phone or on the door. Of course, Sesame will use Bluetooth to check if the paired smartphone is nearby before opening the door to anyone who knows your custom knock. Not at last, users have to option to shoot up Google Now and say “OK, Google, open Sesame!” It really doesn’t get any easier than that!
Early birds could get Sesame for $89, or $139, respectively, with the Wi-Fi access point included. Now that the crowdfunding campaign is over, the price will go higher, when the smart lock will hit the shelves. The first batch of Sesame smart locks will get to Kickstarter backers as early as May.
The Japanese titan seems to have taken a liking for crowdfunding. After showing us how a conventional watch would look like with an e-paper dial and bracelet, now it asks us to envision a world full of smart locked doors.
The curious thing about these recent crowdfunding campaigns is that Sony does not stamp its name onto these projects, but it doesn’t deny playing a major role in their development, either. If the e-paper watch was created by a team of Sony employees that were trying to find new uses for this technology, the Qrio smart lock was created in collaboration with the World Innovation Lab.
Sony claims that Qrio is the smartest device of its kind, and that comes not from the product itself, but from the way it works. Is one of your friends arriving earlier than expected and you’re still at work? Instead of making them wait in front of the door for who knows how long, you could let them in, supposing that they own a smartphone and they have the companion app installed.
Leaving aside the comments that Sony can’t even lock their own facilities, there are a lot of problems that could have a root in the companion app. What would stop hackers from getting an interest in Qrio’s companion app? There should be a way of preventing a friend’s smartphone from gaining access to your smart lock without your permission, but Sony must have thought of that, already.
The following video is entirely in Japanese, but it should give you an idea about how the smart lock looks and works in real life.
Qrio is currently featured on Makuake, Japan’s main crowdfunding platform, where it has already reached its funding goal. By pledging the equivalent of $130, backers secure a Qrio smart lock for themselves, with an estimated delivery in May 2015.
Despite the project’s obvious success, some believe that big companies should stay away from crowdfunding platforms, as these were built specifically for small startups that would have otherwise face difficulties in raising the necessary funds for their projects. Let’s just hope that Sony is not looking to cannibalize other companies in its process of maintaining its success.
I4U hardly takes any rest and it is always busy in bringing the latest news for its loyal readers. With the International Consumer Electronics Show 2014 only a few days away, we are now working even...
This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter. When readers choose to buy Wirecutter's independently chosen editorial picks, it may earn affiliate commissions that support its work. Read Wirecutter's continuously updated list of deals here.
Having groceries delivered to your home is convenient, but if taking food from the front door to the kitchen is too much hassle, then Walmart has a solution. It is launching a new service, InHome Delivery, which involves a representative placing groc...
The landlords of one Manhattan apartment building have been ordered to provide physical keys to tenants who don't want to use smart locks. The decision was reached in a settlement after tenants sued their landlord for installing Latch smart locks las...
After smart home security company August was acquired by Assa Abloy (smartlock outfit Yale's parent company) back in 2017, many assumed the business would disappear in a consolidation of the smart lock market. But now, over a year since the August br...
The August Smart Lock is not new. We reviewed it way back in 2014, and for the most part, everything we mentioned then still applies. The lock is still super easy to install, and it still works with deadbolts, not knobs. Most importantly, using an ap...
