Why do we put a lock on the front door of our houses? The most straightforward answer possible for this question is for security. We don’t want any unknown person to enter our home without our permission and steal anything. It is our simple motto. Whenever we leave our homes, we remember to shut the door and lock it. After putting the lock, are our homes completely safe? The answer to this would be no. A thief has many ways to break into our houses and breaking a lock isn’t a huge deal for the thief.
Our locks are not smart, and even the people with no keys could open it easily. It is just a few seconds work. There are many lock picking techniques, and lock picking sets available in the market with which you could open any lock without the keys.
There has been a new concept of smart locks to create a new level of security for your homes. It is a new requirement as the technology is advancing at a very faster rate. The thieves are becoming smarter, so the locks also need to be smart. This concept is built to create an era of no keys.
If you have installed smart locks in your home, then you would be able to lock and unlock your homes without even being there. You could even make digital keys for the people who visit your home regularly like maid, friends, and relatives.
With the smart locks, you would find it very convenient when your hands are full of grocery bags or any stuff. At that time you wouldn’t have to keep everything down and keep looking for the keys. Even at night when you are on the bed, and you can’t remember if you had locked the door or not, you don’t need to get up and check. You could open your phone and see the lock status.
The concept of smart locks is somewhat based on IOT (Internet of Things). It is a step which would lead to automation in the whole house. It is the beginning of future technologies.
There are many types of smart locks. It could be divided into different categories like brands, ways of connection and much more.
Let us understand the different ways of connection possible for smart locks.
Types of Connections of Smart Locks
It is necessary that smart locks should be connected to your phones and the rest of the security systems in your homes. The three most common connection protocols are:
- Bluetooth Connection
2. Z-Wave Connection
3. Wi-Fi Connection
Now let us discuss the pros and cons of all the three connection systems.
Bluetooth
It is the most common connection protocol for smart-lock systems. It is very widely used because it doesn’t burn the battery life very quickly like the Wi-Fi connection system does. Bluetooth locks would be directly connected to your smartphones as your phones also have the features of Bluetooth, so you don’t need any third party software to run the system.
But it is true that when you use a third party app, you could control multiple connected devices from a single app. The other advantage of it could be seen in the August Lock which has Bluetooth connection system. It has a feature of opt-in auto-unlock feature that is connected to the Bluetooth of your phones. It is useful when you leave home and locks it, and when you return in the Bluetooth range, the door would be automatically unlocked.
The only downside of Bluetooth connection to smart lock systems is that the range would be very much limited. You won’t be able to connect to the smart lock from very far as it comes with a fixed interval. It has a range of about 300 feet.
Z-Wave
The Z-Wave smart locks won’t connect directly to your phone. They would need a translator in between which is a hub. The work of this hub is to convert the signals from Z-Wave and convert it into something which your router could understand.
Samsung Smartthings is the perfect hub for this kind of purposes. It is one single app for multiple purposes. It could connect and manage all the Samsung Smartthings compatible appliances from one single app which is very easy to use.
The range of Z-Wave smart lock is about 120 feet, and so it has to that much closer to the hub. But we could extend this range up to maximum 600 feet by using additional Z-Wave devices.
Some Z-Wave smart locks wouldn’t require a third party app to be installed to get connected to the hub. Some people feel disappointed because they would not be able to get detailed settings for their smart locks and some would be delighted because they won’t have to download another application.
The biggest drawback of Z-Wave is that you would require an additional hub to connect to the Wi-Fi. But there is also an advantage that you would be able to connect to more devices than Bluetooth locks.
Wi-Fi
This system of the smart lock is very much advanced than Bluetooth and Z-Wave systems. For example, if you connect your August lock which has Bluetooth connection and connects it to your Wi-Fi network, then you could control your lock from anywhere through Internet access. There would be no issues of range. It is the best feature of it because even if you are out on a trip, you could control your lock with the help of Internet access. Another advantage of it is that you don’t need to purchase a hub.
Let me tell you that smart locks are a new step towards automation, but they also cannot provide you with 100% security. In this world, nothing is 100% secured. There are loopholes in everything. The hole in these smart locks is that it could be hacked as they are connected via Bluetooth and wi-fi. These locks are handy when you want to let someone in your home when you are not there.
