smart (enough) lock
why i picked the aqara u100 over the locks i actually wanted, and a week of living with it.
i recently moved into a new apartment and decided that this time, i wanted a smart lock.
i’ve used retrofit smart locks in the past. the kind that sit on top of your existing deadbolt. they worked, and at the time they were pretty great, but they always felt a little clunky and out of place. more importantly, they were just a little slower than i wanted a lock to be.
eventually, i went back to a regular key.
this also isn’t my first time messing around with smart locks. back in 2016, i built a very crude one for my room door. it wasn’t meant to secure an entrance or anything serious, but it was probably my first attempt at making a regular lock unnecessarily smart.
i still have a 10-second video of it on youtube.
this time, i wanted to replace the lock entirely.
before getting into how i’ve liked it over the last week, i thought i’d explain why i picked the aqara u100 in the first place.
apple home key was a must. i love my gadgets, and the idea of tapping my phone or watch against my door to unlock it is exactly the kind of unnecessary technology i enjoy.
ideally, i also wanted uwb.
uwb lets newer locks recognize that you’re actually approaching the door and unlock automatically. no tapping your phone, no fingerprint, no code. just walk up.
there were two options that caught my attention: the schlage sense pro and the aqara u400.
the schlage was immediately out for me because it doesn’t have a traditional keyway. as much as i love technology, i also firmly believe that a lock should have a key.
that left the aqara u400.
unfortunately, it costs around $270.
i like gadgets. i don’t like them that much.
once i accepted that uwb was out of my budget, my options opened up. the two i kept coming back to were the schlage encode plus and aqara’s u100/u50.
between the u50 and u100, the big difference i cared about was the fingerprint
reader. the u50 is cheaper and also easier to rekey, but i needed wanted
fingerprint unlocking.
so, u100.
i also just prefer the way aqara’s locks look.
and then, conveniently, i found someone selling a u100 on facebook marketplace for way less than retail.
decision made.
installation took maybe 15 minutes. most of that was actually spent removing the old deadbolt, which had apparently become one with the paint on the door.
once the lock was on, setup was a breeze. getting it into apple home was simple, home key appeared in wallet, and everything pretty much worked the way i expected it to.
after a week with it, i might be biased because it’s still a new gadget, but it’s freaking great.
it’s noticeably faster than the august and switchbot retrofit locks i’ve used before. no hate toward either of those. back when retrofit options were the easiest way to make a lock smart, they were solid and reliable. a purpose-built smart lock just feels much nicer.
i do have one complaint.
the lock talks.
i hate devices announcing errors and confirmations out loud. just beep at me. blink a light. anything else.
aqara makes you download their app to change that setting.
yes, i muted it.
and uwb?
i still want it.
i just don’t want it $200 more.
if i ever find a ridiculous deal on a u400, i’ll probably switch. until then, i’d rather keep the $200 to myself.