Blog · Buying guide

The smart way to secure your home: understanding smart lock technology

A smart lock is not as complicated as the advertising makes it sound, and not as clever as some of it suggests. Here is how these locks work, what they ask of you, and the question that decides everything before you get near the technology.

What a smart lock is

Strip away the marketing and a smart lock is a normal lock with a small motor inside it, batteries, and a few ways of telling that motor to move. The bolt and the strike plate do the same job they always did. What changes is how you give the instruction. Daily use does not depend on the internet.

The four ways in

There are four ways to open the KS150, KS200, KS250, KS280 and KS300. Not five, and not a long list of clever extras.

• Your phone, over Bluetooth, using the TTLock app.
• A PIN code typed on the keypad.
• An RFID card held against the lock.
• A mechanical key.

No fingerprint, and a key that still works

The KS150, KS200, KS250, KS280 and KS300 have no fingerprint reader. If a fingerprint is what you have been picturing, ask us about the KSL Smart Lever Lock, which is joining the range with a fingerprint reader.

A word on the app. TTLock is. It is not our own app. It does the job, but it is third-party software.

The mechanical key matters more than people expect. It is the answer to "what if the battery dies", and all five current models take one. On the KS150, KS200 and KS280 there is also a USB emergency power port. If the cells are completely flat, a power bank on that port powers the lock so your code works. It does not open the lock by itself and it does not charge the batteries. The KS250 and KS300 are not published with one, so on those the key is the backup. Keep it somewhere you can reach, which is not a drawer inside the locked house.

The batteries are ordinary ones. The KS150, KS250 and KS280 take four AA. The KS300, the narrow one, takes four AAA.

What Bluetooth can and cannot do

Bluetooth is short range, so you need to be at the door, or near it, for your phone to reach the lock. That is fine day to day, and genuinely good when your hands are full of shopping.

What it cannot do is let you unlock the door from work, or check from the car whether the kids got home. The KS150, KS200, KS250, KS280 and KS300 are gateway ready: remote features need the Wi-Fi gateway, which is a separate purchase. It sits inside the house, within range of the lock, and connects it to your home Wi-Fi.

Trade-offs

You are swapping one set of small annoyances for another. Batteries need changing. Codes need managing, so giving a cleaner their own code is easy, but removing it later is on you. App access needs a smartphone, and some family members will be happier with a code or a card.

Weather is worth a thought. The KS250, KS280 and KS300 are rated IP65 and the KS150 IP56. Whatever the rating, a door under an eave or a porch is kinder to any lock than one in the weather all day.

First, check it fits

This comes before anything else, and it has nothing to do with technology. The lock body must sit flat against the face of the door. A solid timber front door is usually generous. Aluminium joinery often is not.

Panels in this range run from 43mm wide up to 75mm. The KS300 is the narrow one at 303 x 43mm, and the only one with a sliding door backset. At the other end, the KS200 panel is 193 x 75mm.

Measuring your door

One measurement decides almost everything: the width of the flat face of the door, taken beside where the handle sits. On a timber entrance door there is usually plenty. On aluminium joinery the flat face is often just the stile, and that is where the range narrows fast.

Hold an ordinary bank card flat against that face, with its short edge (54mm) running across it. If the card is wider than the flat face you have to work with, you have a narrow door and the KS300 is the only one worth discussing. If the flat face is clearly wider, you have more options. Either way, photograph the card held against the door. That one photo answers half the questions anyone fitting a lock will ask you.

Ranchsliders and French doors

These two catch people out. On a ranchslider the flat face is often just the aluminium stile, and it can be under 50mm. French doors have the same narrow face plus a second problem, which is that the two leaves meet in the middle, so anything standing proud can foul the other door as it closes.

The KS300 exists for this situation. That is not a promise it will fit your door, but it is where the conversation starts.

Where to start

Sort out fit first, before you settle on a model. Our locks are sold online by Entrance Handles, and supplied and fitted by LockLab across Auckland. Have four things ready when you get in touch. What the door is made of. Whether it swings or slides. The width of the flat face. And whether you want remote access, which means adding the Wi-Fi gateway, which is a separate purchase.