Less. Look at any Lockpicking Lawyer video on YouTube as he demonstrates in real time how bad they are. Most of his videos are under 5 min
If you want to really turn yourself off smart locks check out any DefCon talk about smart locks or “smart” devices in general.
most of the smart locks that are supposed to be drop in replacements for traditional locks are mostly trash.
Personally been eyeing upgrading to UI’s access readers, but it lacks features like door unlock with Apple Homekey (for now anyways since it requires some specialty hardware). So been holding off.
This particular product is geared towards small business and large enterprises. But can be setup for home usage if you have to technical expertise.
And most dumb locks can also be picked in under 5 minutes. The difference is a smart lock can alert me when someone who isn’t me opens the door or leaves it open. Of course, most burglars are just going to break a window to get in.
There should be a separation between fully mechanical locks with electronic monitoring (ideal) and a mechanical lock with vital electronic components.
You can get a lot of locks which allows you to connect external mechanisms which can do just that. Don’t know anything ready out of the box, though
SwitchBot makes a retrofit deadbolt controller that straps onto the inside
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My smart lock doesn’t change the locking mechanisms. It’s basically a robot on the inside that turns the lock like you would. The only security issue would have to be software side, which a typical thief isn’t going to bother with especially since you cost tell from the outside that’s it’s not a normal lock - because it is.
August lock btw.
I agree that most thieves won’t bother - but they do now have the additional option to hack it, making the lock less secure in total, not to mention the flawed mechanical design many of those smart locks have.
Yeah I’m just saying in my case they have no way of seeing that it’s a smart lock at all. The only smart part is an attachment on the interior side. So mechanically it’s 100% the same, and there is no visible indication that is “hackable,” even if it were. My door and it’s lock look as just like it did 15 years ago.
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I just watched LPL pick a smart lock with no keyhole. He just had to shove a bit of wire in the drain hole at the bottom. 🤦♂️
Right at the start dude….
Designed for administration of high occupancy.
Those are second line in those cases, that’s not supposed to go on someone’s front door…
You want them to break in for insurance purposes though, it’s a clear indication of unauthorized entry. Your policy should cover the door/window, but if your lock gets picked/bypassed you’re going to have a rough time getting things covered.
This just isn’t true.
Why would they need proof of forced entry? Is that seriously a thing where you are?
A previous owner of my apartment had for some reason installed a high security door. It’s 5 inches thick with steel plates inside and has 3 separate sets of 3 locking rods like a bank vault. Not sure what line of work they were in but, really, good luck to the person who thinks they can break in here easily. Downside is there is no way to put a digital lock on the sucker.
I think I can come up with some guesses on their line of work
I would be worrying about fire fighters won’t be able to enter my apt when they need to.
Firefighters train for exactly such scenarios and will happily go through a nearby wall. The cops struggle with armored doors, but the guys with axes don’t bother.
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It depends on your threat vector. In the academic sense they’re less secure but if you often loan out keys they’re more secure because you don’t have to give someone the key. If you often forget to lock the door they’re more secure because you can do it remotely.
Or if you have kids they can’t lose their keys if they just have a pin. And that pin can be changed if they tell it to someone.
They have a regular backup cylinder that has all the vulnerabilities of a regular lock.
On top of that they have a bunch of electronics that can be vulnerable.
I can’t see how it would be possible for them to be more secure unless you’re someone who leaves their keys around a lot and a smart lock would let you not have a key on you.
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Even worse, quite often those backup locks are very cheap
From what I’ve seen? Considerably less secure.
Many of them feature a normal pin-tumbler lock cylinder as a backup in case the electronics fail, and best case scenario it’s going to be as mediocre as any old Kwikset hanging on the peg on the comedy aisle at Lowe’s. So you’re probably still vulnerable to key theft, key duplication, picking, combing, raking, jiggling, etc.
Then there’s the electronics. A surprising number of them rely on either a solenoid to directly operate the latch/bolt, or a relay that energizes a motor to do the same, both of these are vulnerable to attacks by magnets. A stupid number of them are vulnerable to disassembly attacks. There are trace evidence attacks such as looking at the keypad and noticing where all the fingerprints are, there’s just watching you dial the combination…
And the smart phone app driven ones…sure, let’s send a signal that means “I just got home” across the internet. That sounds safe.
Researched a bit into this some time back and I was not convinced.
It would be nice to have a lock I could assign entry codes for different users and still have a physical key as an emergency backup but the obcession with these locks being tied to an app and/or internet discouraged me.
I stayed with purely mechanical locks with complex keys and secondary arms that make the task to break down a door much harder.
Don’t know how it is in other countries but I’ve been to shops where I specifically asked for locks that would give a locksmith a bad time to pick and was shown a few models where the only way to break it was to put a whole cutter to it and cut out the entire drum.
My door lock is a smart lock but I disabled all ability to unlock it remotely with an air gap. It gives me the ability to use the keypad to lock/unlock without any security holes added.
My smart home system knows it’s state too, so I can have it make a chime or alarm if the door is unlocked at certain times. Great for alerting us that our toddler is playing with the door again.
Anything with added complexity will have a larger attack surface and more failure modes.
What would you recommend?
Honestly, the lock is one of the last things to worry about. If you have an outward opening door get security pins for your hinges.
Check out one of https://m.youtube.com/@DeviantOllam talk on door security and worry less about the lock and more about the door fixture. His hour long conference talks to through how a door is insecure how it can be exploited and what you can do to prevent it from happening.
Absolutely right! By far the majority of burglaries are with forced / destructive entry. Virtually all. That makes me think: if there is a “lockpicking lawyer” out there, what else lockpicking is there…?
Typically, external residential doors open inwards so that they can’t be blocked by someone on the outside. Of course this doesn’t apply if we’re talking about an internal or non-residential door.
It is region specific as in my place 2 out of 3 of my external doors open outwards. my place before that was about 50:50 for outwards or inwards opening doors.
I’m not sure. Honestly, it was mostly observation, and not straight fact. Perhaps it just more common on more recent construction. I don’t think I’ve ever been aware of an apartment or house door opening outward, except for screen doors on the outside of regular doors.
Trying to think through all doors of all places I have lived personally and I can not remember a single inward opening door in a house, cottage or apartment. I could very well be wrong but nothing comes to mind.
Based on the context, I think they would suggest going with the old school lock with a deadbolt. The more complex a device is, the more likely it is to have multiple vectors of attack.
I have to disagree - this is more like the gate that blocks the sidewalk that you can get around by walking on the grass. The mechanical locks that these come with are significantly weaker, more common and better understood by thieves, that they wouldn’t bother even trying to figure out how to hack the smart lock.
That doesn’t invalidate their point. The electronic lock is just an additional potential point of failure with no added security. In addition to people who can pick or break the key lock, now there is an additional type of person who can break in: the kind that knows how to bypass electronic locks.
Same concept but why pick a lock when you can break a window or sliding glass door?
In other words… The attack surface is indeed larger for smart lock than dumb lock – more ways to attack – but in practice it matters little because existing home attack surface is easily breached.
PS the counter argument is smart locks come with added security controls: monitoring, logging, and the ability to auto lock in case someone forgets to lock it.
if someone wants in, a lock wont even slow them down. check out lock-picking lawyer
LPL is quite a bit better than your average thief though, and if you attract enough attention to have this kind of expertise thrown at you, you need to worry more than just locks.
Burglars won’t pick locks, though. Breaking the door, door fixture or the window next to the door is much faster, easier and requires very little skill.
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I doubt it. Bump key requires a tool and a skill. The bar is not high but there is one. My understanding is most burglaries are impulse or opportunity. Is something open or unlocked? Can I break it with my boot or a nearby rock?
Doubt what? A proven issue?
A bump key requires zero skill and a set of 10 will net you around 90% of current doors. And skill? It’s a 30 second video to watch, if you even need it. You push the key in and turn at the same time. If it works it works, if it doesn’t you move on. Even a trained professional can’t get into every single door, it’s about ease. If it doesn’t work, they move on.
I doubt it’s used frequently to break and enter. Burglaries are much more opportunistic
It’s used very frequently…. It’s hard to track though since it leaves no trace if done right. Most people would just think they left their door unlocked.
But of course very few people are going to admit that either.
I seriously don’t know why I’m arguing with you or why you think that your opinion matters.
It’s a known issue, simple as that. They are illegal to own without a locksmith license for these things exact reasons.
Ignore facts if you want mate.
My opinion doesn’t matter as yours doesnt, just actual facts.
I didn’t spend enough time finding data but this is representative of data I’ve read
— https://www.adt.com/resources/how-do-burglars-break-into-houses
Edit to add: here’s an article from “Bump Key and Lock Picking News”
— https://www.ukbumpkeys.com/blogs/news/how-safe-is-your-home-i-ask-a-thief
How easily could the Flipper Zero hack a smart lock? I’m guessing relatively easily.
Not at all. It’s not like they’re just listening for a dumb radio signal, they use crypto.
…which the Flipper Zero can beat.
If its using a wireless frequency , probably.
One thing people aren’t considering is that if we assume that it’s relatively trivial to bypass either a classic lock or a smart lock, only one of the two is likely to give your phone a notification that it’s been opened in your absence.
Do they have a small battery? Because it is a common practice to cut down electricity when someone intends to break in your house, even with that backup source of power I guess the lack of electricity would mean no Internet anyway.
Mine runs on 4x AA batteries, which lasts a very long time. On the order of a year. Cutting electricity would indeed prevent the notification, but a dumb lock couldn’t send one even with all the power in the world.
Plus, in a shared apartment/condo building the power is much less likely to be cut and in a freestanding home one could theoretically put their network on a UPS so any notifications would still go out.
freestanding home one could theoretically put their network on a UPS so any notifications would still go out.
I have a UPS attached to my Synology NAS, and every time the unit is triggered it sends a notification (kinda, now that I think about it, how is it sent if no power electricity 🤔) so the NAS advises me that can’t ping to Synology after several minutes, is that what you mean?
I mean that if you have a cable modem and wireless router on a UPS, your internet should stay up unless the burglar also cuts the cable (much less likely).
Ahh yeah, that was me overthinking, pretty neat simple solution I have been wanting to do that since forever, hopefully a robber won’t be the cause of me finally doing it 😅
Haha yeah, the whole thing is a risk calculation that you can take all the way down the rabbit hole. But having network on UPS has other uses too, at least.
They have their conveniences but I want to get this lock. It’s design makes picking next to impossible. Lpl couldn’t even get it. https://youtu.be/qV8QKZNFxLw?si=1WCdQCktVfGhJtsm
Definitely less secure, but way more convenient. Security for residential door locks doesn’t really matter that much though; thieves are unlikely to try to pick your lock or use some smart-device exploit to access your home - they’ll just smash a window.
Agreed, most of home security is to try and make your neighbours a more tempting target than you. The ethical choice is to do it by making your home a bit more difficult to break into though I guess you could “debuff” the neighbours as well 😉
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Security 101 : If it’s convinient for you, it’s convinient for the attacker as well.
Ssh keys are pretty damn convenient.
Both at the same time. Different attack vectors
“The weakest part of the door is the window (next to it)”
“You don’t need a key when you have a brick”“The locks are for honest people”
I put that 3M film on all my accessible windows and doors. It takes 3-4 hits with a sledge to get through. Thieves don’t come prepaired for that and even if they are, the alarm would go off on the first hit. It’s also a very loud noise and an extra minute of smashing on a populated downtown street. Well worth the extra cost.
Fun fact, broken windows very rarely alert neighbors to a burglary. They’re not terrible at alerting the home owner, but unless a neighbor connects a second, overtly thievish sound to the crack of broken glass, they will usually go about their day. It’s not even the bystander effect, most people just don’t know what a burglary sounds like.
Thieves don’t pick locks or hack them. You mostly want to protect against brute force.
A lock is never weaker than a window. If someone wants in your house, there are ways that don’t have anything to do with your locks. Locks of any quality largely work by deterrence, rather than actual pickability or durability. If I have to literally break something to get in, I’m drawing attention to myself and immediately putting a count down on my robbery before a cop shows up or witnesses get a better look at me, my vehicle, etc. So it’s already not worth it for most petty thieves.
when some thieves broke into my neighbors house they first rang the door bell a few times to make sure no one was home, after that they hopped the fence and went window to window until they found one that was unlocked and went in that way
This could go badly for would-be thieves, I usually don’t answer the door if I’m naked, lol. Hopefully, they like gay shit when they break in. ✨️
Haha the dudes that broke in left a big knife on their pillow too not sure if they actually would have used it or was just as a scare tactic, they were like two high school aged dudes that most likely were the kids who lived across the street
Yup. Path of least resistance
A broken window is clear indication of theft for insurance purposes. If your lock gets picked, you might be fucked depending on how your policy is written.
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I worked for a company that designed home security devices for a few years… Pretty much everyone i talked to agreed there is only 1 actually good security device that is an effective deterrent. Its called “Large Scary Dog”. Every other device is there just to notify you that all your shit is soon to be or already gone.
On the other hand, these digital locks, while not any safer, are much more convenient. I am all in on not having to carry keys and instead have a code to enter or some other easy access.
Ive always wondered what happens if the battery dies, do you still need to carry a key in case that happens
A few have external terminals to charge them when they die.
I have a 9v battery stashed in a flower pot next to my door for when it happens.
I hope there is a replacement replacement. Life deserves recursion.
Two is one, one is none.
There are ones like August that only add the smart lock on one side and retain the old hardware on the outside. If the battery runs out you just gotta use your key like a plebian. It warns you ahead of time it’s low though and I’ve never had it fail in the half decade I’ve had it.
Usually there is a warning that the battery is dying well ahead of it actually being dead. One that can send notifications will ping your phone with a low battery message. Others have audible warnings. You unlock it and then it starts beeping at you. It keeps doing that until you either change the batteries or it eventually dies. But you have to do a lot of ignoring for it to die on you. Many do have key backups too though. Just in case
Most dogs are fine if you just carry treats and act polite. I’ve seen plenty of dogs just let intruders in because they were kind to them.
So…you were the intruder, right?
intrudes upon this conversation
…yep.
I have a smart lock and tbh hate it. I’m not sure the security difference, but it’s more inconvenient than a key, takes longer, needs me to pull out my phone, open an app and then I can unlock my front door.
Unfortunately getting away from them in moderately upscale apartments is getting harder and harder.
I absolutely love my smart lock. It has auto-unlock when I arrive home after leaving the neighborhood, so I never have to use a key or a phone app. It also has a key pad, so if my phone is not on me or is dead or whatever I can still punch in a code. And I can both check the lock status AND door open status anywhere I am in the world if I have wifi or cell data. I can remotely unlock the door to let in my housekeeper if I am at the office without giving her a code. I can also lock it when she leaves.
That’s a much more fancy one than mine then. The only feature I have is remote unlocking. Nothing else you mentioned is a feature of mine, so that may make sense why I dislike them.
I’m not even able to lock my door remotely, let alone check status or if it’s open. The only way to lock the door is physically using the deadbolt from the inside, the app offers no way to do it.
Ahh, yeah, I can see how that would be annoying.
Yeah, it’s not great. The door had a keyhole so when I signed the lease I was really expecting to be given a physical key to unlock the door, but they wouldn’t even give us those.
A fully featured lock might be worth it, but with the one I have now it’s not great.
Well than that’s a proprietary lock, I don’t think that falls under the umbrella of “smart”.
If it’s internet connected it’s considered a smart lock imo. I’m not sure what distinction you’re trying to make.
Anything that requires the use of my phone for something that could be done just as well with a physical item is a bad product imo. I don’t read on my phone, I don’t ever want my phone to be my car key, I don’t like having smart devices in my home.
I have an august lock that has auto unlock but the Bluetooth radio is so weak it never unlocks. I usually use Siri on my watch to lock/unlock. Next place hopefully I can get one of those homekey tap to unlock ones.
I hope you didn’t pay much for your lock if you can’t even lock it with the app, that’s a huge deal breaker. I don’t remember the last time I used a key.
I live in an apartment building, so I had no choice in the lock, but also didn’t pay for it.
Never tried Siri for it, but I also have Siri disabled on my phone. The watch app is a PoS with this and doesn’t work unless you open the app on the phone too.
I’m sure there’s better options out there, and my sample does seem to be a pretty low quality one, but I just don’t really find a need for one. I’d much rather have a physical key tbh. I’ve almost been locked out because I don’t always take my phone when running the trash out and I’ve bumped the front of the lock with my back and it auto locks me out.
