Smart Locks near you

The type of smart lock that suits you is decided by the door you already have. Most disappointing installations start with a product chosen online and a door it was never designed for, so work the other way round: identify the lock currently doing the work, then find the smart version of that.

Start with what is not regulated. The activities that can be licensed in the private security industry are listed in Schedule 2 to the Private Security Industry Act 2001, and they are manned guarding, private investigations, security consultancy, key holding and door supervision at licensed premises. The government's guidance on whether you need an SIA licence lists manned guarding, key holding and vehicle immobilisation in Northern Ireland. Fitting or maintaining a lock is in neither list, so nobody licenses the person who comes to your door.

The product is a different story, and this is the part most householders have never heard of. The Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure (Security Requirements for Relevant Connectable Products) Regulations 2023 came into force on 29 April 2024 and extend to England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Section 4 of the 2022 Act defines a relevant connectable product as one that is internet-connectable or network-connectable and is not an excepted product; Schedule 3 to the Regulations lists the exceptions, which include electric vehicle charge points, medical devices, smart meter products and ordinary desktop computers, laptops and tablets without cellular connectivity. A smart lock is none of those.

One adjacent activity is licensed, and it is worth separating from the rest. Paragraph 6 of Schedule 2 covers keeping custody of, or controlling access to, any key or similar device for operating a lock. If a company is going to hold a code or a key to your home and attend when something happens, ask about that part specifically, even though nobody needed a licence to fit the hardware.

A good fitter measures before recommending anything. On a multipoint door that means the cylinder size taken from both sides of the centre screw, how far the cylinder sits proud of the handle, whether the handle has to be lifted to throw the bolts, and whether the door needs a shove on a warm day. A motor asked to drive a mechanism that a person has to fight will chew through batteries and then fail, usually with the door locked.

Setup is the half that gets rushed. Before anyone leaves, the account should be in your name with your own password, household members should be added as their own users rather than sharing one login, the mechanical override should have been tried from outside, and you should have watched the lock work from both sides. Ask for the model number, the app it depends on and the published support period to be written down; you will want all three the day something stops working.

LokalMatch is only the introduction. You describe the door, the lock currently on it and what you want to be able to do, once, with your postcode, and installers who cover your area get in touch with you directly; the pros pay for the requests they receive. LokalMatch does not fit locks, does not attend, does not set prices, and does not vet, rank or recommend any of the businesses that reply, so the measuring and handover questions above stay yours to put to each of them.

A smart lock moves part of your front door security onto a phone and a server. The National Cyber Security Centre's advice for households is short and worth following exactly, because most of the trouble with connected devices comes from defaults nobody changed rather than from clever attacks.

Security and escape pull in opposite directions, and escape wins. Government fire safety guidance for the home is to plan an escape route and make sure everyone knows how to escape, to keep exits clear, and to keep door and window keys where everyone can find them. A smart lock should make that easier, not harder: everyone in the household, including children, visitors and anyone with limited hand strength, has to be able to open the door from inside immediately, in the dark, without a phone or a code.

Then plan for the flat battery, because it will happen on the coldest morning of the year. Know where the mechanical override is and carry the key it needs, keep a spare with a person rather than under a plant pot, and replace batteries on a schedule rather than on a warning. If the lock depends on your broadband or the manufacturer's servers, find out before you buy what still works when both are down.

If you rent or own a leasehold flat, ask before you drill. A tenancy usually says something about altering locks, a lease will say something about altering the front door of the flat and almost certainly about the communal entrance, and a managing agent will have a view on anything fixed to a shared door. Keep the original hardware so it can go back when you leave.

A smart lock is three purchases at once, and consumer law treats them separately. Under section 9 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015, every contract to supply goods is treated as including a term that the quality of the goods is satisfactory, and quality expressly includes fitness for the purposes goods of that kind are usually supplied for, freedom from minor defects, safety and durability. The app and its cloud service are digital content, and section 34 applies the same satisfactory quality standard to them, again including safety and durability.

The fitting is a service, and section 49 treats every contract to supply a service as including a term that the trader must perform it with reasonable care and skill. Between them, those three provisions cover the lock that fails in a year, the app that is withdrawn, and the door that was never adjusted. The published support period is the piece of evidence that ties them together, which is a good reason to keep a copy of it from the day you buy.