The best smart locks you can buy right now

Never get locked out again with a smart lock you can control from your phone, with your voice, or with just a touch of your finger.

smart lock is an easy solution to a lot of common problems. Locked yourself out? Forgot your cleaning service is coming today? Your latchkey kid lost their key? Other half always forgets to lock the door? Hands are full, and it’s raining cats and dogs? A smart lock solves all of these problems and more.

By giving you remote control over your front door from anywhere and easy, key-free ways to unlock your door lock, a smart lock is one of the best smart home upgrades you can make. It can also be more secure than a traditional lock, especially if you are someone who would otherwise leave a spare key under a flowerpot.

One of my personal favorite features of a smart lock is integrating it into a smart home routine so that my doors lock every night at 9PM, or if I say “good night” to a smart assistant, it shuts the lights off, makes sure the doors are locked, and adjusts my thermostat to Sleep mode.

Other important considerations are decent battery life (spoiler alert: this is hard to find); at least three different ways to unlock (keypad, fingerprint, and auto-unlock are my favorites); and connectivity that doesn’t require a dedicated hub.

The latter is key (haha) for controlling your lock when you’re away from home — another feature I find super useful about smart locks. All of the locks listed here can assign “virtual keys” or unique codes to service people or a neighbor looking in on your dog that you can easily revoke and also assign only for specific times. But sometimes, it’s just easier to unlock the door for them and then lock it when they leave, even if you’re 2,000 miles away.

Finally, I recommend considering a lock that will work with Matter, the new smart home standard. Matter compatibility means your lock can work with any smart home platform that supports Matter, including Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Apple Home, and Samsung SmartThings, among others, and can be controlled with your app or voice assistant of choice as well as by the one your other half prefers to use. This helps futureproof it, and while you might be okay swapping out your light bulbs every couple of years, a smart door lock is a bigger investment. 

Matter also means your lock will work with any Matter-compatible device, such as smart plugs and smart lights, for home automation routines (for example, to shut off all your lights when you lock your door). As of today, no locks work with Matter. But Yale, Lockly, Level, and SwitchBot have all committed to upgrading their existing locks (some with additional hardware, such as a hub). Schlage and August have said they will make Matter-compatible locks at some point. For more on which devices will work with Matter, read our guide.

 
 
The Yale Assure Lock 2 is an inexpensive, good-looking keypad lock that works with every smart home platform. The slimline design (both front and back), wide smart home compatibility, easy-to-use app, and good selection of unlocking options make it my top pick by a long shot.

The Assure Lock 2 comes in a touchscreen or keypad version, with or without a keyway. The touchscreen is super discreet, especially the version without the keyhole, but my household had some trouble with it. I recommend the keypad for most people.

The lock supports Bluetooth out of the box and works with the Yale Access app and Apple Home (but not Home Key). It has auto-unlocking, an included door sensor to tell you if the door is open or closed, and can be controlled by your Apple Watch. Auto-unlock is a decent alternative to a fingerprint unlock, although sometimes I had to wait at the door for a second or two before it worked. Still, it’s faster than fumbling through a purse for keys when your hands are full.
Support for other platforms comes through Yale’s ingenious swappable networking modules, which cost $80 each. I tested the Wi-Fi module, which adds support for Amazon Alexa and Google Home. It worked well in those ecosystems and allowed me to add it to Alexa Routines and lock and unlock it with my voice. The downside is that control over Wi-Fi is considerably slower than over Bluetooth and more quickly drains the battery. Yale estimates up to a year on Bluetooth only, compared to six months over Wi-Fi.

If you plan to use the Assure Lock 2 with Alexa or Google Assistant, though, it’s worth waiting for Yale’s Matter-over-Thread module to arrive instead of paying for the Wi-Fi version now. That module should be a faster, more battery-efficient way to add Alexa and Google support to the Yale Assure 2.

However, Yale tells me the module’s been delayed — it was originally slated for the end of 2022 — and didn’t have a new timeline to share. A Z-Wave module to add compatibility with SmartThings hubs, Ring Alarm, and other Z-Wave hubs will be here this spring, according to the company

The other electronic locks in this guide are all good options if you have specific needs not met by the Yale lock — such as fingerprint unlocking or Apple Home Key support, you want something even more discreet, or you can’t replace your entire deadbolt. Otherwise, the Yale Assure 2 is the lock to get.