Category: Smart Locks

Aqara’s locks split by radio, not by price: the U100 and U50 are Zigbee and need an Aqara hub, the U300 and U400 run Matter over Thread, and only the B50 has Wi-Fi built in. Here is which one fits your door and your ecosystem.

Lockly’s PIN Genie keypad reshuffles its digits after every use, so watching a code being typed tells a thief nothing. Here is which Lockly to buy – and why the connection you choose quietly decides your battery life.

Kwikset’s electronic locks split on connectivity and keyway, not on price. Halo has built-in Wi-Fi and needs no hub; the SmartCode 260 and Powerbolt 250 have no app at all and last about twice as long on a set of batteries. Here is which one fits your door.

A grade sticker measures durability, not pick or bump resistance. Here is the hardware that actually matters – anti-drill plates, bump-resistant cylinders, 1-inch bolt throw and a reinforced strike plate – verified against Schlage’s and Kwikset’s own documentation, plus 4 real picks.

A knob lockset and a deadbolt solve different problems, and no ANSI grade closes that gap. What a knob-only exterior door actually needs, and where a knob alone is genuinely the right call.

A patio or sliding door fails in two separate ways – a weak factory latch, and a panel that can lift out of its track. Here is which lock, bar, pin or foot latch actually fixes which problem, and how to layer them instead of guessing.

The Nest x Yale Lock isn’t a Yale Assure with a Google badge – it runs on the legacy Weave protocol through a separate Nest Connect bridge, and Google has quietly discontinued it in favor of a Matter-based successor. Here’s what it actually gets you, and whether it’s still worth buying.