Smart lock for my front door, what do you recommend?

Forums › Home Workshop DIY › Smart lock for my front door, what do you recommend?

qubasiasty

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#154801 7-Nov-2014 21:15

Hey Guys, I will be moving into a newly bought home at the end of the month and I'm looking at buying a smart lock for my front door. I'm looking towards a smart lock as I currently have one and I don't want to go back to the standard key system. The house has double wooden door that can easily have a smart lock attached to it. My question is which lock do you recommend and where should I buy it from, preferably in New Zealand.
Thanks

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BDFL - Memuneh
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#1171168 7-Nov-2014 21:17

What do you have now?

qubasiasty

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#1171171 7-Nov-2014 21:19

I think its a Gateman III, older model which I can't move over to the new house because I don't own it.

networkn

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#1171200 7-Nov-2014 22:00

I wouldn't own a house without a smart lock ever again. It's exceptional. Can't recall the model but I had a problem with it 5 years after I bought it, expected to pay them to service it, and they came out, fixed it, replaced the warn pad, thanked us for our prior business and left without mentioning any fee. Never got a bill either. Installation was excellent. Ours is now 6 years old.

qubasiasty

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#1171202 7-Nov-2014 22:17

Yea they are very convenient since we have 7 people living in our house which is inconvenient to provide everyone with a key.

networkn

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#1171205 7-Nov-2014 22:23

qubasiasty: Yea they are very convenient since we have 7 people living in our house which is inconvenient to provide everyone with a key.

We have a cleaner and a few people who help us out on a semi regular basis. We can give them a soft key and when they leave or aren;t required any longer, we just wipe their key code and they can't get in any longer.

There was talk of a smartphone compatible version that would show you who came and went and what times etc. Also ability to remotely lock and unlock the door and reset the alarm.

floydie

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#1171206 7-Nov-2014 22:25

ive got a kaba ef680 in my place. it has prox card/ pin number / remote control and a good old fashoined key. it doesnt have any sort of connectivity to the net or anything but the remote could always be hacked to inteface with an alarm or IP module of some sort if thats waht you really want....available from sopers macindoe.

qubasiasty

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#1171208 7-Nov-2014 22:26

Are you able to get me the specific model of the lock you have? It looks like something I might want :)

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#1171210 7-Nov-2014 22:29

PM me Monday night and I'll check for you.

davidcole

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#1171245 8-Nov-2014 08:32

I'd be interested as well. I like the idea of keypad + key backup

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Otagolad

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#1172268 10-Nov-2014 15:58

I have a Kevo - http://www.kwikset.com/kevo/default.aspx - and it's brilliant - simply walk up to the door and touch it and it opens - it knows what side of the door the bluetooth device is so no risk of standing at the door inside the house and someone being able to unlock the door from outside.

It's best used with an iPhone, although it does come with a couple of Fobs and also has key entry. I have a mate who lives out of town and visits once every couple of months and he has a guest e-key on his iPhone and can just rock up to the house when he arrives in town, touch the lock and he is in. Far easier to use than those keypad locks, especially when your hands are full.

I would have loved it to have wifi so it can be remotely unlocked and I imagine that will come in a later version. If you read reviews that say it has slow unlocking times, it did up until a software update last month, which has made the unlock almost instantaneous.

freitasm

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#1606659 9-Aug-2016 00:10

Sorry to bring back an old topic but... At this year's security conference DEFCON Anthony Rose showed how bad Bluetooth security locks are.

The Kwikset Kevo Doorlock – a $200 deadbolt – can be opened with a flathead screwdriver. Other Bluetooth ‘smart locks’ are made of plastic.

The attacks on these Bluetooth locks varied, from sniffing the password sent in plain text to the lock (!), replay attacks, to more advanced techniques such as decompiling the APK used to unlock these smart locks. When all else fails, brute forcing locks works surprisingly well, with quite a few models of smart lock using eight digit pins. Even locks with ‘patented security’ (read: custom crypto, bad) were terrible; this patented security was just an XOR with a hardcoded key.

And from The Register:

Some of the locks he tested were ridiculously easy to crack with this kit. Four of them, the Quicklock doorlock and padlock, the IBluLock padlock, and the Plantrace Phantomlock, transmit their passwords in plaintext - making it trivially easy for a data sniffer to pick up the code once the lock is used.

Five more locks are susceptible to replay attacks whereby a hacker picks up the signal when the lock is used, stores it, then sends it again to unlock the device. The susceptible systems were the Ceomate Bluetooth Smart Doorlock, the Lagute Sciener Smart Doorlock, the Vians Bluetooth Smart Doorlock, and the Elecycle EL797 and EL797G smart padlocks.

Four locks did hold up however, so if you’re in the market for such as device then check out the Noke Locks, Masterlock, the August doorlock. The Kwickset Kevo lock has a “fantastic” software security system with strong crypto, Rose said, but should be avoided because the lock was so badly made you could open it in seconds with a screwdriver.

SumnerBoy

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#1606695 9-Aug-2016 08:17

I have just ordered a Nuki (https://nuki.io/en/) from Austria. They were funded via Kickstarter and began shipping last month.

The things I like about this one are;

1. it can fit to my existing deadbolt cylinder with no need to bore another hole

2. nothing visible from the outside (looks and works like a standard key lock)

3. open API for integration with home automation system (via Nuki Bridge)

4. easily installed/uninstalled/moved

5. reasonably priced (about $450 delivered - so will probably have to pay GST as well)

EDIT: oh and the bit that is relavent to the topic, the BLE seems to use pretty decent encryption techniques and they are very open with what/how they do it.

1101

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#1606877 9-Aug-2016 11:45

freitasm:

Sorry to bring back an old topic but... At this year's security conference DEFCON Anthony Rose showed how bad Bluetooth security locks are.

The same can be said for old school mechanical locks: not really secure . At all.
A few taps & they can literally fall off the door, as I found to my horror when I had to quickly remove one that would no longer open.
Often can easily be opened with just a blank key , theres vids showing just how stupidly easy that method is.

Padlocks: a basic, old design flaw means many can be opened with just a strip of thin metal

I guess locks are there for show only, if crims want in, they will get in .

SumnerBoy

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#1606879 9-Aug-2016 11:47

Couldn't agree more. Locks are there to stop the honest people from getting in, a decent burglar will have no trouble breaking a window elsewhere, or jimmying the lock etc.

Therefore a smart lock is purely for convenience. Makes me and my families life a whole lot easier so is a definite win.

neb

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#1607277 9-Aug-2016 21:27

freitasm:
Sorry to bring back an old topic but... At this year's security conference DEFCON Anthony Rose showed how bad Bluetooth security locks are.

Beat me to it. In the same way that you can pretty much assume that any SCADA equipment is full of security holes (i.e. the default-until-proven-otherwise state of SCADA is "insecure"), so you can assume that for any general electronic locks. That's not just the home-grade unlock-with-a-cellphone ones but hotel room locks and others, those things are a near-neverending source of conference talks and papers.

You have to consider what it is you're protecting, for example if someone wants to break into my house they can just stick their fist through the front door and swing it open so I could probably put an electronic lock on it, but then once someone weaponises and commoditises the attack on a "smart" (cough) lock so anyone who can hold a cellphone can open it, you're in a spot of trouble. Picking a lock takes a bit of skill, meaning that any crook clever enough to have lockpicking skills will probably get in eventually anyway, but if it's as simple as clicking on "Unlock" then you've lowered the bar a bit too much.

Speaking of which, I'm waiting till I have some free time to Pineapple my Cleveloop devices to see how well secured they are...

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