Investing in a smart home can be quite expensive, and thus, knowing how to secure your smart door lock is crucial to the safety of your smart home. Smart locks, strangely enough, are one of the best feats to accomplish in home automation.
They add style and function to something every house has – a front door. We are talking about locks designed to work with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and voice assistants. These wonders come in all shapes and sizes, and their availability is quickly growing in the market. No matter your doorstep dilemma, there’s likely a smart lockout there for you. From steps as fundamental as changing your lock’s default password to steps as technical as changing your lock’s wake words, we will be guiding your through all you need to know to secure your smart door lock real safe.
In our review, we are about to take you on a two-road journey – one path would be on a few ways a smart door lock can change your life, and then we show you all you need to know on how to secure your smart door lock.
5 Ways a Smart Door Lock Can Change Your Life
To start with, here are five ways a smart door lock can change your daily life!
Smart Door Locks Eliminate the Need For Key Fishing
An automated life is what everybody wants, and not getting to ever look around for keys is what really brings out the value of your smart door lock.
With features like Google Assistant, Apple HomeKit and Amazon Alexa, you can set up scenes like “OK Google, goodnight” that dim the lights, adjust the thermostat and lock your front door.
Imagine controlling your smart lock remotely when it is connected to Wi-Fi. More often than not, that means purchasing a small, plug-in Wi-Fi bridge to connect the lock to your network.
As soon as you’ve done this, you will find a way to lock or unlock your door from anywhere you have an online connection. Not sure whether you locked the door in your haste to leave for a business trip? A smart lock will send you alerts as to whether your door is left open or locked.
Smart Door Locks Give You a Fashionable First Impression
Smart locks do not need to be styled. In reality, they come across as normal locks. Take the Kwikset Kevo for instance: From a brief distance, it seems like a dumb dead-bolt. However, you can access it with the Kevo app, and with a tap, unlock your door.
Retro-fit locks such as the August Smart Lock, August Smart Lock Guru, Kwikset Convert or Sesame Lock make your front door seem ordinary, hiding how smart they actually are.
Nevertheless, if you’re on the lookout for an upgrade to your own Airsoft hardware, then Schlage, Kwikset, and Yale create trendy locks that combine keypads and the conventional dead-bolt design. Whether you are on the marketplace for vintage or modern, you will come across a smart lock that matches your style.
You Get To Keep Your Older Keys
The fact that you’ve updated your smart lock does not mandate that you change out your key. Since models such as August’s lineup of locks connect into the side of one’s door, you can maintain your current deadbolt, use your keys, and also spare yourself the time required to set things up.
You Can Now Let In Your Buddies When You Are Away
If you are a vacation rental operator, someone who operates cleaning or dog walking services, or even anyone with relatives and buddies, popping up a smart lock may make life easier.
Making copies or concealing an extra pair. You can hand out keys utilizing the lock’s corresponding program and restrict what times somebody is permitted to enter your house. As an example, you may allow certain users to input schedules like “just on Monday through Friday between 2 and 4pm”.
Additionally, there is a choice to allow family members and roommates access, or so the machine works for the household.
If delivery is in the head, Amazon Key can be used with different smart lock brands. A delivery man receives an entry code and also puts your own package in the door of one’s house. A few folks could discover in-home delivery somewhat embarrassing. However, with good surveillance (an Amazon Key kit involves a smart camera), you may continue to keep your eye on everyone else who moves. If you have an August smart lock, August Access provides delivery for retailers.
Access at a pinch is simple. Let us imagine somebody who you understand and hope has to put in your home. If your lock is joined to a module, then you are able to let them from anywhere.
Keeps Your Home Protected
Yes, even smart locks have been linked to programs, and a person using a smart lock needs to keep their program passwords secure and work with a PIN for unlocking via voice supporters. But smart locks do get rid of the probability of someone swiping at the main element in under your doormat.
Besides having to possess a spare key or construct backups, you will have a means of entrance to your residence besides the usual kind of keys. You may place some smart locks to lock the door after having a fixed period of time, or any time your mobile gets left the location. Of course, if you are comfortable ditching your keys, a few smart locks go as far as leaving the keyway out entirely, making the lock impossible to pick.
Now that you’ve seen how smart doors make life better, let’s talk about how to make them really safe.
How to Secure your Smart Door Lock
At the time of writing this article, I thought about top insecurity issues smart door locks face, and all that kept crossing my line of thought was hacking.
That’s why I’m dedicating the next section to “how to make your smart door lock hacker-proof”.
4 Steps To Securing Your Smart Door Lock
Change The Default Lock Password
This is one of the easiest, but most important actions. Most smart door locks that you buy have an interface in which you could get into the change and apparatus settings. You have to log in to this interface with a password that came with this device. Unfortunately, a number of smart home door locks utilize generic admin passwords such as “password” or”admin”. These passwords may generally be seen in only minutes having a quick Google search. By altering the default to a password that is powerful and hard-to-guess, hackers will be stopped. Check the smart lock’s manual to learn just how to modify the password of your apparatus.
Tip
- If the lock allows you to modify the webpage, then do this, because it is likely to make it even harder to hack.
Update Your Smart Home’s Door Lock
Upgrades to your smart home devices include brand new features, performance improvements, and bug fixes. Updates will even include security fixes. These security fixes will probably fix exploits that hackers may use to obtain access to a device. This is among the simplest and best ways. Assess your device’s manual to find ways to find software updates.
Tip
- If there is a setting that allows the smart lock to automatically install updates, then enable it, as this will make matters much easier for you personally later on.
- Be sure to also update the programs that control the smart door locks, in addition to upgrading your cellular phone and computers which you use to regulate your device.
Change the “Wake” Words on Your Smart Assistants
“Wake” words are the words you say that trigger smart assistants and smart speakers. By way of example, “Alexa” maybe your aftermath word for your own Amazon Alexa speaker, and”OK Google” could be your wake word for Google Assistant. Some smart door locks permit you to change these wake words to a customized word (or words) of your choosing, for example, instead of”Alexa,” you are able to use “Hey, Open sesame.”
Tips
- It is important to do this when you can because hackers are finding ways to use high pitched sounds, out of the assortment of human hearing, to control smart personal assistants.
- Some hackers can use this to fool your phone that they could record you into calling them, or else they can work with a loudspeaker to inform your Amazon Alexa as part of your home to unlock your door or disable your alarm clock.
- Changing the aftermath words will help prevent this from happening because the hackers will not know what they need to play to activate your door lock.
Connect To Only Secure WiFi Networks
Employing a Wi-Fi system that is secure could keep hackers from having the ability to get into your network and hacking your smart lock devices. This means that they might have to come in from outside the network, which can make hacking your own apparatus a lot tougher.
6 Top Ways to Secure a Door From Being Kicked In
- Replace the Deadbolt Strike Plate and Reinforce the Hinges
- Reinforce Your Door Frame
- Make Sure You Have a Door with a Solid Core
- Improve Glass Door Security
- Forget Standard Door Chains – Use a Strike Plate Lock Instead
- Install a Door Barricade or Use a Security Bar to Secure Your Door From the Inside
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you keep your home safe from intruders?
– Use timers and TVs to fool burglars into thinking you’re still home.
– Be mindful of windows and glass sliding doors
– Use warning signs
Can Electronic Door Locks be Hacked?
Do Smart Locks Need WiFi?
What are the Best Smart Locks?
- August Smart Lock Pro Connect. Best overall smart lock
- August Smart Lock. The best value smart lock
- Schlage Encode. A great smart lock with a built-in alarm
- Yale Real Living Assure SL. Top keyless lock
- Lockly Secure Plus. Best smart lock with a fingerprint reader
- Nest X Yale
- Kwikset Premis
- Kwikset Obsidian
What is the Most Secure Smart Lock?
The Best Smart Locks To Keep Your Home Secure:
- Schlage Sense. Schlage
- Yale Deadbolt Lock. Nest
- August Smart Lock Pro. August
- Kwikset Kevo. Kwikset
- Yale Assure SL. Yale
What Type of Smart Lock is Best for a Front Door?
- Best Overall: Kwikset 991 Juno Entry Knob at Amazon
- Best Touchscreen: Schlage Connect Touchscreen Door Lock at Amazon
- Best Portable: Addalock Travel Door Lock at Amazon
- Best Keyless: Schlage Camelot Keypad with Flex-Lock at Amazon
- Best for Front Door: Kwikset Belleview Handleset at Amazon