Re: Nice advertising
Mostly agree with what you say, however a few points:
> 2. Given that the thing is battery-powered a well-prepared homeowner will still want to have at least one other door with a classic lock, for which a key must be available outside the house, else an unplanned battery change could get expensive, what with involving destructive entry.
As the article itself states, there is an external battery terminal that can be used to hook up a 7-volt battery to provide enough power to enable a single unlock cycle. I have a stand-alone (non-smart) electronic lock and it has standard 9-volt battery external terminal to power it in an emergency.
> Apart from leaving in a civilised place, I have come to find it so pointless over the years that my front door is never locked. Provides about the same security as your usual residential arrangement but beat that solution in terms of price and convenience if you can.
This is a very bad idea. Most residential home burglaries are burglaries of opportunity. Lowlifes walk around the streets, walking up to front doors (or back doors at night) and see if it's open. If it's locked, move on to the next house. If it's unlocked walk in, steal anything they can near the front door area - or further in if the house is unoccupied.
This happened to me once, unlocked front door because I was home. The front door and couple adjacent rooms (couple bedrooms) were un-observable from the location the rest of the residents were in at the time. The prick walked off with about £2500 of loose valuables from the first room (watches, some electronic media-player type devices. a passport, etc) and would have been in and out in less than a minute.
A friend was up late one night (2 or 3 am) watching TV, went to the kitchen and a man was walking out of the unlocked back sliding glass door and ran off. He'd come in the unlocked back door, found my mates wallet on the kitchen table, and ran off with it.
This is normal and the most common type of burglary. More planned ones where locked premises are burgled are significantly rarer.
So even cheap locks will reduce your likelihood of being burgled - if they are used.