I was surprised to find that the SwitchBot Lock moves the thumb turn as well as I can, and it remained stable during my two weeks of testing, despite being attached solely with double-sided tape. (No word yet on long term durability, but looks promising so far). The cons are that it’s not very smart and it lacks some basic features (haha). You also need about $70 worth of accessories to add smart home control and a keyboard. That brings it closer in price to fancier solutions like August’s $230 Wi-Fi Smart Lock, which takes a little more work to install but doesn’t leave you with a gorgeous piece of plastic honking at your door.
Good stuff
Easy to install Fast operation Works with many door locks Optional keyboard with fingerprint reader Up to seven unlock options
Bad things
Impossible appearance There is no inherent programming Auto lock unreliable Application may be slow Keyboard and Wi-Fi hub almost twice the price
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The SwitchBot Lock is a Bluetooth-enabled retrofit smart door lock that can lock and unlock your door using the SwitchBot app on a smartphone or Apple Watch. (Not compatible with Home Key). It attaches to your door using 3M VHB tape and uses a small plastic handle to hold and turn the lock thumb.
That’s what SwitchBot is all about: making normal devices smart. They have a little robot that flips your light switch for you and a robot that crawls along your curtain rod to open and close the curtains. This is a robot arm for your door lock. It comes with three different sized adapters so you can find the right fit for your installation. The SwitchBot Lock does not remove any functionality — you can still use your key and you can still turn the deadbolt manually. It just adds the ability to use your phone or watch as a key.
Keypad Touch adds a fingerprint reader for another way to unlock your door.
There are a total of seven ways to control the door lock: your key, the smartphone app / Apple Watch, NFC tags using your phone, a key code using a keypad, a fingerprint reader, an NFC key card and smart home / voice control. That’s a lot of options — though only the first three work out of the box.
The keypad and the door lock.
To enter your keycard, keyboard, or fingerprint, you’ll need one of the SwitchBot’s two Bluetooth keyboards. These are attached with double sided tape (or screws if you prefer). I tried the fingerprint version, which costs $60, and it worked quickly and reliably.
The fingerprint-less version is only $30, but fingerprint access is my favorite way to use a smart door lock. The keyboards also work with NFC key cards. (One is provided, and you can buy a three-pack for $15.) Although, if you have a keyboard, I don’t see the need for a keycard, since you can make permanent, temporary, and one-time codes available to anyone who needs access. Annoyingly, six digits is the minimum here, which is a lot of digits.
If extra keys aren’t your thing, another unlock option is to use the two NFC tags that come with the lock. You can pair them with your phone to lock or unlock the door with a touch of your phone. But you need to use two tags: one for locking and one for unlocking. Sticking two white pieces of plastic to your door doesn’t improve the overall look here, and if you already have your phone out, using the iOS or Android lock screen widget is almost as fast.
This is a robot arm for your door lock
But you need a $40 SwitchBot Hub Mini to connect the lock to Wi-Fi and do these integrations. the lock itself communicates via Bluetooth. You also need the hub to control the lock or check its status when you’re not at home using the SwitchBot app. The hub works with all SwitchBot gadgets, but must be installed near the lock.
SwitchBot operation with Apple Watch via Bluetooth.
I installed the SwitchBot lock on my back door, which is the main entrance to our house. It drives into our mudroom from our garage and gets a lot of traffic. The fingerprint reader and keyboard made it easy for my kids to use the lock — no need to download an app. Without them, however, there is no easy way for a child without a smartphone to access the door.
I was also disappointed that the notifications when the door is unlocked didn’t show which code or fingerprint was used. This is a feature common to other smart locks and one that I personally use to track my older children’s comings and goings when I’m at work. However, I could check the app log to see who unlocked it.
Locking and unlocking is quick when controlled with the keyboard, but the phone app takes over five seconds to connect — very annoying if you’re standing in the rain. The Apple Watch connects faster, and if you didn’t have a keyboard, it’s the easiest way to control the lock. All these interactions are via Bluetooth, so you have to stand on the lock. For remote control with the app or voice control, you need the hub.
The top of the lock pops off to replace the battery and adjust the lock to fit your door.
Setup and installation was quick, less than 5 minutes total. This is one of the lock’s biggest selling points, but it wasn’t entirely straightforward either. You need to do some shimming to make sure the lock will turn before you tape it to the door and you need to use a small screwdriver (supplied) to adjust the lock clearance. Cleverly, it adjusts in any direction, vertically or horizontally, so you can fit it around your door handle. It also comes with a magnet to detect when the door is open or closed, although I was able to remotely lock it while it was wide open without any alert or notification.
The SwitchBot app is basic. There’s no way to schedule the door to lock or unlock at a set time of day, and the auto-lock function was very erratic. It only worked with the “Lock after a set amount of time” toggle and the “Relock if the door is unlocked but not opened” toggle, and even then, it was unreliable. This seems like a fixable software bug. But that meant I had to pull out my phone to lock the door (there are iOS and Android lock screen widgets to make it faster), use the Apple Watch app, or use my key. When I added the keyboard, though, I could press a button to lock it.
There are some useful notification options such as when the door is locked, if the door has been left unlocked, and if it has been left ajar after a certain amount of time. Notifications require the hub to work and really, they should just sell it with the hub. It definitely makes it a better smart lock. With the hub, I could connect to Alexa and add the lock to an Alexa routine that would automatically lock it every night at sunset.
It works, but it doesn’t look like it should.
The SwitchBot lock is a good option for renters who can’t change their door lock at all, or for those who can’t or don’t want to remove any part of the existing bolt. It needs to be attached to the door frame using a heavy duty adhesive, which will probably take some paint with it if you ever remove it. Similar retrofit options from August, the Wyze and Bosma require the rear screw to be removed and all cost over $100.
However, its smart features are limited to local control of the lock with your phone, Apple Watch or existing key. When you add to the Wi-Fi hub, you get remote control and more useful smart home integrations, but only with Google Home and Alexa. no HomeKit support and limited IFTTT integration. (The lock is only a trigger, not an action.)
If you also add the keyboard — especially the fingerprint — it becomes a much more useful proposition, but then you’re hitting $170, closer to the price of less ugly options with better smart devices that don’t require all that extra hardware (but you do need to remove part or all of your door lock). These include August’s Wi-Fi Smart Lock Keyboard and the Eufy Smart Lock Touch with Wi-Fi (a fingerprint reader and keyboard in one but a full lock replacement).
The biggest advantage of this lock is its versatility. You can even use two in one door to deal with multi-point locking. Its ability to grip almost any type of locking mechanism, including a key, means it may be the only smart solution that works for your door.
Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
