Are smart locks replacing keys?

As first impressions go, they don’t get much more important than your front door. But, as well as providing a smart-looking, well-lit entrance to your property, this portal clearly also plays a huge role in your home’s security.

As a minimum, you’ll need a five-lever mortice deadlock, to British Standard 3621 or European Standard EN12209. Hinges must be highly secure, and a spy hole plus door chain or limiter are also good ideas. Glazed panels are not as secure as those with toughened or laminated glass. Letterboxes should be at least 400mm from the front door lock, and never fitted to a door’s bottom rail.

Some 5% of burglaries occur when the intruder has a key to the property’s door. But new smart technology on its way is set to revolutionise the way we secure our homes, and change the face of standard locks and keys. After all, using a swipe card for a hotel room is already second nature to most of us, as is remote-opening of a car door.

Amazon Key, for example, gives couriers access to your home when you are out. Now Yale’s new Connexis LI SmartLock uses digital combinations to keep intruders out using a key tag or card – or even your smartphone. It’s a far cry from founder Linus Yale’s 1841 invention of the modern pin-tumbler lock, itself broadly based on similar technology found in an eighth-century BC Iraqi model!

The SmartLock allows you to, for example, send a virtual lock to a grant a cleaner or carer access to your home, and the convenience of being able to carry the ‘key’ on a mobile device. You can also ask a virtual assistant such as Alexa whether your door is locked when you got to bed.

It follows the innovative GrabLock for windows, unveiled earlier this year, but Yale launched its first Smart Door Lock in 2012, and has been developing it since then, and worked to ensure the product offers the same security as a conventional lock and key. It’s been developed in conjunction with a home improvement firm.

Of course, smart technology is evolving all the time. And for the moment, for various reasons, many of us may prefer securing our homes in the traditional way.

But however you lock your home at night or when you go out, security will always (forgive the pun) be key. At Paradise Windows, offering home improvements across Oxford & Oxfordshire, we take this aspect of providing front doors seriously, and all our doors, whether you go for a uPVC door, a composite door or a bifold model, are highly secure and come with a decade-long guarantee.

Talk to us today – without obligation.