“In our brute-force kick tests, the cause of failure is more often than not the short screws used to attach the strike plate to the door frame,” says Misha Kollontai, CR’s test engineer for door locks. They repeat the test eight times, with the ram raised to increasing heights-or until the lock fails. That’s why CR engineers conduct kick-in tests using a custom-built jig that swings a 100-pound steel battering ram against a locked door. But even if you’re diligent about locking up, you need a good deadbolt to thwart thieves. This can be changed via a settings menu, but if you’re that trusting of a person, perhaps you don’t need a smart lock anyway.Most burglaries involve criminals forcibly entering your home, according to Federal Bureau of Investigation statistics-and that includes coming through your front door.

Note that by default you can only lock the Schlage via Alexa, not unlock it, as this presents a potential security risk should someone be able to yell through your window for Alexa to open the front door. You can’t add or remove new PINs here, time-restrict them, or see who’s coming and going based on their code, all of which makes this a poor choice for rental units and other complex entry environments.Ĭonnecting via SmartThings also allows you to control the lock through Alexa and Google Assistant, and Alexa support was fine once I ran through the discovery process. The history log isn’t completely reliable or thorough-and it’s mightily lacking in detail about how the door was locked or unlocked (via app, keypad, etc.)-but it’s more information than you’ll get without connecting it to a hub. Within the SmartThings app you can do surprisingly little with the lock: You can manually lock and unlock it, check the battery, and see a history of recent activity. Once I tried everything again with the proper version of the app, everything proceeded smoothly. I found the correct instructions online and, to both Schlage’s and SmartThings’s credit, successfully got the lock working with SmartThings and the old version of the app, which I didn’t think would even be possible. It took me a few tries to successfully add the Connect to a Samsung SmartThings hub, in part because I mistakenly used the old version of the SmartThings app, which contained outdated and inaccurate instructions. (Note that you’ll want to head online for virtually all this documentation the quick-start guide includes very little of it.) Christopher Null / IDGĪn event log shows when the lock was engaged and disengaged, but it doesn’t reveal the manner in which that happened (with a PIN, via the hub, or with a physical key). Other settings, like disabling beeps, enabling automatic locking, and factory resets can be performed via the keypad too. All the programming can be done via careful coding through the numeric keypad on the front of the lock, the main function of which is adding and deleting PIN codes. In fact, you don’t need an app or a smart home system at all to use the lock’s smart features. Since this version of the Connect is a Z-Wave lock, it does not have its own app to install.

Ultimate lock deadbolt review