IMHO, its pretty telling that you don't see a fingerprint option in any of the smart locks from any of the real/established lock players. Food for thought.
3 Likes
Care to elaborate? Are you suggesting that fingerprint is more insecure than a regular keypad or key?
I think fingerprint or facial recognition is perfectly secure if done right (e.g. Apple TouchID / FaceID). Neither is cheap to do right.
My (unsubtantiated) conclusion is that the legit players explored it, and determined it was cost prohibitive to do properly (w/out risk to brand), and that's why you don't see it on Yale/Schlage/Kwikset.
There's absolutely no way I would ever trust a chinese fingerprint lock, but that's just me.
7 Likes
Understood, thanks for the clarification. But I also think that they are behind in the technology adoption curve though. I had a smart Schlage lock about five years ago. I left that home since, but still, it seems to me that technology hasn't moved too much in the space. And I'm looking at the new products and they don't seem to be very different at all, at least not from the brands you mentioned.
About the Chinese locks, I would not go far as to say never, but, yes I am generally more careful with Chinese products. A door lock might not be the best idea.
I think NFC-like solutions (like Apple Key or whatever they are calling it) are probably the real future in this arena.
But I'm with @aaiyar -- I happen to have 2 of the same Yale touchscreen (no key) locks as him and also use the zigbee modules. No issues for the many years I've had them.
For my wife & I, a phone-based authentication wouldn't be very useful as we don't have our phones on us 100% of the time we lock the house. A touchscreen is really the ideal solution for us - if I'm doing yardwork or other dirty maintenance outside / in garage, my hands are often too gross to use a fingerprint scanner.
We rarely need to ever let someone else in, so controlling access codes isn't an ongoing concern for us, but I can see how that would be painful thing to deal with on a regular basis.
We never use our front door for coming-&-going, so I left my Medeco deadbolt on that door - we have that key hidden outside the house for emergency use if SkyNet ever goes down.
1 Like
I do use LCM on a weekly basis.
1 Like
Speaking on behalf of those cold Canadian winters:
- I've always thought that a manual key option is absolutely required
- I personally don't feel that the "keypad" type is not reliable in cold weather
- The Kwikset Smartcode 888 doesn't look great, but it performs with no issues (so far).
2 Likes
There's also the Alfred (with or without key).
Don't have one as it was quite expensive back when I bought my Yale, but the people who have done seem to like them.
2 Likes
Do you need to take your gloves off to press the keypad?
Also using Yale Assure lever and deadbolt. The deadbolt is keypad and key, lever is just keypad. I had a hell of a time finding the ZigBee modules dor some reason. Has to resort to eBay. Maybe if you contact directly you can get one.
I will say this about the Yale locks, they just work. Not once have I had a problem with them. I like that they have some smarts built in too. I make them relock themselves after 5 minutes as I dont trust smart home ecosystems for outer door security. Just my little piece of mind.
1 Like
Please forgive the double negative. I meant to say that Canadian winters aren't good for keypad presses.
There is Sifely which can use a rfid card as a access method and also has a fingerprint reader. It also has the option to use a API to integrate so in theory it could be integrated with Hubitat.
A friend got me one for my B-Day, but unfortunately it wouldn't work with my Door as the handle and keypad wouldn't work with the deadbolt I have. It looked interesting though.
That said it was returned for a Yale Assure Lock 2 Deadbolt (Zwave) only. I wasn't sure about the security of the backend system. It also required an additional bridge to add wifi as it was bluetooth only without the bridge.
Here's a question though for the fingerprint locks. Let forget a moment that they're all pretty much cloud controlled. Is the fingerprint info stored on the lock or is a copy also stored in the cloud for comparison and then the cloud signal comes back and says open, or is the fingerprint stored locally only and authentication only on the lock? Just curious
Have you tried the Bluetooth one-touch unlock?
I have two of these Alfred locks but I have yet to use them in the winter.
As far as Sifely goes it only has bluetooth in the lock itself. I would expect then that it is isolated and completely local unless you get the wifi bridge or keep your phone nearby to act as an intermediary. The API doesn't appear to provide anything other then managing lock information and telling it to do certain actions.
Fingerprint data should be local for speed.
I think I'll wait this out. It seems there are not any options on the market yet for what I am looking for. Hopefully, at least an Apple home key solution will come soon.
The silefy look interesting but there doesn't seem to exist any indication of compatibility with Hubitat or any other ecosystem apparently, they also lack any security certification.
I have a Kwikset SmartCode Touchscreen Electronic Deadbolt 915TRL Z-wave version...... It works Great
