Time to ditch the front door key? Nest's new wireless smart lock is surprisingly convenient

> You can either press the Yale button at the top, or leave it to lock itself. If, for whatever reason, it doesn't lock, it lets you know immediately with big yellow warnings on your phone and an LED on the lock.

That LED, I hope, is on the inside right? Otherwise, your lock is sat there telling anyone passing that it failed to lock after you drove off because you were running late.

> If you are a paranoid or security-conscious person you will have already decided that the idea of a smart lock is a horrible, terrible thing.

I'm not convinced it's a sign of paranoia to point out the flaws with these things. The write-up focuses primarily on usability, and it's seldom the usability that draws the criticism.

> The Nest+Yale lock uses Google's Thread IoT protocol to communicate with its Connect bridge – or its Secure home station if you have that. This is a smart move as it puts a buffer between the lock and the internet. It's going to make hacking the door to open a much harder affair.

Or, potentially, has just increased your attack surface.

Not having it talk directly to the internet is a good move (and one I wish more would follow), but it alone doesn't automatically mean you're now much safer. The bridge/home station is now part of your attack surface, and it might still be possible (somehow) to convince the lock to communicate with the wider world. You could actually be worse off, especially in the wider market where certain manufacturers may well think "it's never going to talk directly to the internet, so don't put any effort/expense into fixing that bug"

It's good the lock works for the author, but they're definitely not for me and likely never will be. There are just too many issues that need to be addressed in the wider world of IoT. One of those issues - manufacturers actually supporting their kit for prolonged periods - is addressable, but is just the very first stage.

Even without that, I'd much rather a multi-point lock.

Drilling Brass

Using Brass to prevent drilling? How does that help? Drilling Brass is slightly more tricky than steel but with the right drill and the right technique it's perfectly straightforward - I've seen it done in the engineering factory I worked at years ago. Don't try it with a normal drill though, it will jam.

You chamfer the leading edge of the drill so it's a blunt chisel rather than a sharp edge. This breaks off the brass in small chunks rather than the spiral swarf you get with steel, so you have to keep withdrawing the drill to clear those chunks. Then it just works.

You'd presumably need to swap out the drill when you hit a different material so it makes it a bit more slow and tricky, but surely not massively so?

I know a couple of people who have had the burglars in - in both cases access was by removing a window.

Oh and how is all this powered? batteries by any chance? When the little 12V battery in our doorbell died the doorbell wouldn't ring. No biggy, you could always knock. But what if the Nest runs out of battery? While you are away on holiday for eg so you can't respond to the notification?

We're off to NZ for our youngest's wedding next week. I have no worries that our keys won't work while we are away.

Our old door, Yale lock and deadbolt forced me to break in once. I walked out the door and closed it before realising I didn't have a key with me. A case of the wrong trousers. My wife was working away.

I only had to trigger the Yale bolt. So, I did have access to my garage workshop. Hammer, chisel, card scraper. Chisel moved the wooden strip protecting the door and the card scraper (hard thin metal plate) was slid into the gap by the Yale bolt and tapped with the hammer until it slid past the bolt and I was in. Note a credit card was not strong enough. Don't keep your locks really well greased.

Our new mutlipoint locking front door has one key and you cannot lock it without the key so I can walk out the door without worrying about it locking behind me. A key with a 1Fr coin for a fob sits on the inside to enable locking at night and easy and quick egress in the event of fire.

High security?

Setting aside the usual 'elephant in the room' of really secure doors (the glass in the windows) I do have to question the basic premise. If you live somewhere where you are worried about the likelihood of people kicking in the front door, or drilling out the lock and stealing your valuables, or you are in the 28% who have home alarm systems, I have two suggestions. 1) Move or 2) don't bother with any valuables

Okay, I'm lucky. I don't have anything worth stealing and I live in the impoverished wilds of rural Wales, but what sort of life is it when you feel you have to live in a high-security prison, albeit one where you have a key?

Solar?

I'm surprised they don't include a solar panel on the outdoor component. If the AA batteries can last six months in standard use, I would think a LiPo battery, trickle charged by the panel during the day, could provide a significantly longer life in some situations.

Wonder how well it stands up to cold chisels

Had a safe problem once with a very similar looking lock. Locking mechanism itself had failed so the electronics and mech backup were not a good attack surface.

Locksmith returns with a hardened steel rod, 1/2in dia, a 2in wide cold chisel, a 16lb sledge hammer and very large assistant. Shot one was with the cold chisel very nearly tangent to the front surface of the safe... Lock goes flying across the room. Second and third blows with rod to guts of lock mechanism proper modified it to the point where hand tools did the job of moving the mechanism. 5 minutes versus a $400-$500 lock.

Mines the one with the nice deadbolt, right next to a floor to ceiling set of stained glass sidelights. Both at the insistence of the wife...

My place already does all that.

The door opens for me every time I approach, the thermostadt is adjusted to the proper temperature so the home is a comfy bliss when I enter, & I never have to worry about forgetting my keys...

But then I'm filthy stinking rich & employ a butler. /Sarcasm

I'll get my coat, it's the one with the delusions of grandeur in the pockets...

Even Easier Solution

Come home with rucksack and 2 hand bags of shopping. Open door (which was never locked In the first place). Deposit shopping.

As long as there is an actual slot for a key, and it isn't flapping open, people are going to assume a door is locked.

Plus, anyone entering my home is going to think I've already been burgled anyway .....

If keys are a problem, buy an electronic door lock.

RFID/Mifare fobs are dirt-cheap nowadays.

The real problem is - house insurance. If you are broken into, you have to show that they forced entry. If your lock can be opened without showing signs of forced entry, your house insurance won't cover you. Even if it did, they require it to be up to a stated British Standard.

If you're prepared for your house insurance to be invalid (or do without entirely), sure, change your locks. It's really easy. But not for some cloud-connected shite. GSM-controlled and RFID-controlled locks are everywhere in business, they are bog-standard access control items. They also do everything this thing could possibly do, without all the hassle and expense.

And then if you want all that stupid integration stuff (When lock opens, alarm turns off? Really?), you can easily get a home controller that does that. But I wouldn't touch Nest for it.

Whilst this all sounds marvelous I can't help thinking it's just another thing to worry about. A conventional lock needs next to no attention to use it. Whilst temporary access codes and all that sound useful I suspect the chances of it going wrong, batteries going flat, company ceasing to support it, etc are orders of magnitude more likely to happen than my cleaner sneaking back in and ransacking the house.

One concern i would have with these locks, which you don't get with traditional key locks is someone watching you enter your pin and then coming back at a later date to enter your property. no breaking in needed and would possibly mean no payout from the insurance company.

I can see in some situations where it would be useful, as the author mentioned if you have an short term rental property such as Airbnb this would make things easier no worries about keys being lost etc.

I would have thought a mini USB style connector would be better for battery boosting in the event the internal batteries are dead. You could use a mobile phone style battery bank or even your phone with the correct cable.

I recently swapped out the euro cylinder on my doors for 3 star ones, after a series of break-in in my area where burglars would snap the cylinder and this would enable them to unlock a multi-point locking door with just a hammer and some pliers.

Thought it might be a locksmith job but its really easy and took me about 10 mins and 15 quid per door.

IoT - Just a patch or hack anyway from finding an open front door

IoT firms have shot themselves in the foot too many times before.

if this takes off then the same people who currently spend half their lives looking for misplaced keys will be the same ones who manage to continually mess up by forgetting codes/losing phone/internet etc.

... front door key off the bunch of keys ...

When I read "... front door key off the bunch of keys ...", I remembered I still had the key for the front door of my late mother's house on my key ring. I don't need it anymore as we've just sold the house. It was a somewhat poignant moment taking the key off my key ring.

9V, not 7V

Perhaps 7-volt is a typo? The Nest website says that a standard 9V battery can be used to temporarily power the door lock.

https://nest.com/ca/support/article/How-to-lock-and-unlock-the-Nest-Yale-Lock-if-the-battery-is-drained

"If you need, you can use a 9 Volt battery to temporarily charge the lock, so you can enter your passcode on the lock’s keypad to lock or unlock it."

Surprised...

...there isn't a version with the lock/keypad in the door frame - can have more than one bolt, harder to drill, can be run off the mains with battery backup, no big lump on the door. OK, harder to install I grant you that. I presume the bolt is attached to a solenoid of sorts, so have multiple bolts.

I'll take royalties on that idea thank-you-very-much!

Dave

The Lock Must Handshake with Google?

Besides all the other problems previously mentioned, what happens when your ISP is down, or in other words telecommunications is no longer available? I need a good new home security and lock system. But nope. Even if it is something as good as 99.999 % of the time, what back in telephone engineering days was called the 5 nine's, if other links in the chain do not meet your standards, you can expect to be locked out.

Otherwise

Or, you could use my solution. Live in the country were you don't have to leave your house locked. I've lived in my present address for 30 years plus, and for most of the time the door has been unlocked. AC for obvious reasons

"It's going to take a pro to get past it"

Is the author SERIOUSLY that naive?

All its going to take is ONE PERSON to figure out where to drill it, and then everyone else just needs Google.

And only a moron would have a "smart" lock as the only way into their house. What's wrong with leaving a traditional lock on a back/side/garage door, so you have a way in if something goes wrong with it? I sure hope no one is dumb enough to believe that a smart lock improves their security. It improves their convenience only.

I'm going to laugh when in a few years people start having their house robbed due to a security issue with a no longer supported smart lock, and insurance companies deny those claims because they failed to properly secure their house.

So what happens if you kick off the touch pad or otherwise dislodge or remove it? What does it expose? Something a wrench/spanner can manipulate? Something a screwdriver can turn? If someone wants to get in to your house, they can and this lock will not stop them nor possibly even slow them down.

Oh and most burglars don't come in the front door. Most likely they would use the other door, one they can drill or kick in as well. :(

Sure it's great, like their thermostat..

..that's "automatically learned" to put my heating on for 14hrs per day :-\

It's only had two months to learn our comings/goings/preferences.

Turned that crap off and manually set the schedule. What a load of poop!

I think we're overlooking the basic function of a door lock. It isnt designed to be unpickable or uncrackable. A door lock is supposed to be a simple deterrent. If someone wants in they can just cut a window and let themselves in.

Case in point : Someone a couple of years ago thought it would be funny to call the police and tell them i was dead...

Cue the police turning up with a ram, after that failed on my 5 way locked, metal imbedded door, they jemmied the window of its hinge and climbed in that way.

People are always reinventing the wheel, and right now a security door with 5 or 7 way locking is a much better investment than any lock. So not for me thanks.

Anonymous because i dont want people tracking my house down

House insurance

I've just been looking at the T&Cs in my home insurance and I'm pretty sure this lock would not comply with the specification of locks that I'm required to use.