Aqara’s new $190 smart lock works with Matter and Apple’s Home key

You wait ages for a Matter-compatible smart lock, and then three come along. Aqara’s $189.99 Smart Lock U100, which was announced at CES, is available starting today. It’s compatible with the Apple Home Key via HomeKit and has beta support for Matter through the Aqara Hub. Switchbot is updating its Switchbot 2 Hub this week to add Matter support to its smart locks, and just last month Yale added the Matter module to its $229.99 Assure SL Smart Lock,

Plus, Apple announced on Monday that the Home key is coming to its platform with iOS 17 on Matter Locks, meaning they won’t need HomeKit certification to use the feature.

Matter is a new smart home standard designed to make it easy to buy smart devices and make them work with everything in your home. Smart locks were among the first types of devices supported when Matter launched last November, but it took until now for Matter Smart Locks to actually appear.

As with Matter, a smart lock should easily connect to one or more smart home platforms that support it, including Apple Home, Google Home, and Samsung SmartThings. Amazon Alexa only supports certain Mater device types right now; Smart locks and bridges are not included, but should be soon.

Matter also means you can share locks across platforms without the need to download additional apps, set up accounts, or link services via the cloud. This lets you use the same lock in Apple Home and Google Home, however you want, as well as control it with both voice assistants.

Aqara’s new Smart Lock is a full replacement battery-powered deadbolt lock that works over Bluetooth out of the box and can be unlocked with a fingerprint, keypad code, regular key, or NFC tag. It’s also one of only three locks to work with Apple Home Key, which puts your door key in your Apple Wallet so you can unlock it the same way you use Apple Pay, just with your iPhone or iPad. By tapping on Apple Watch.

At $189.99, the U100 is the least expensive Apple HomeKey lock ever; Schlage Encode Plus is $320, and Level Lock Plus is $329.

The lock requires a Bluetooth connection for the Apple Home Hub or a Zigbee connection for the Aqara Hub for out-of-home control and to connect to other smart home platforms. Aqara’s hubs work with Google Home, Alexa, and Apple Home, and can connect to SmartThings via Matter. (The Aqara M2 Hub Mater supports it.) It can also connect to Google Home and Apple Home via the Mater, but the Mater doesn’t yet allow touch-to-unlock, so you’ll need Aqara’s HomeKit to use the Home Key. Compatibility will need to be used.

Apple’s announcement that it will support touch-to-unlock for Matter Lock in iOS17 won’t affect Aqara Lock, as it already works via HomeKit. But it does mean that any lock that is Home Key hardware compatible will be able to use the Home Key in the Apple Home via Mater without HomeKit certification.

such a lock can The switchbot is locked into the future. According to Switchbot’s PR manager, Sean Tan, the Switchbot app is being updated this week to add mater support to the Switchbot Lock, which is enabled through its new hub, the Switchbot Hub 2. The lock has NFC capability and already works with Alexa and Google Home. Center; The Matter update brings support for Apple Home and SmartThings (and another way to connect to Google Home).

Level’s Plus lock already supports the Home key, but it’s possible that its non-Plus, NFC-enabled version, which , may at some point work with the Home key via Matter. However, it is unclear whether this will require additional hardware updates. Level has said its locks are thread and miter capable but has yet to announce when it plans to upgrade them to miter.

The second miter lock you can buy now is Yale Assure Lock SL, which comes with the new Matter Smart Module for $229.99. You have to buy the module and the lock together; You can’t just get the module and add it to your existing Assure SL, although Yale says that will be an option at some point.

The Assure SL with Matter is a thread lock that only works with Matter, which means it needs a Matter controller and thread border router from your ecosystem of choice to function. For example, Apple HomePod for Apple Home or Google Home Mini, and Eero Mesh Wi-Fi Router for Google Home.

However, the Yale lock can only be controlled via a Matera-compatible app—it won’t work with Yale’s app because it doesn’t have Bluetooth. It’s also an older model from Yale—not its newer, sleeker, slimmer Assure Lock 2. Yale says it still plans to release the Assure Lock 2 with Mater, and that model will work with the Yale app and the Mater Controller app. Yale Lock currently does not support Home Key.

Smart locks were among the first devices to be announced as part of Matter, so why are we only getting a trove of options now? Yale says this is due to changing the goalposts. Yale’s Garrett Lovejoy said, “We have been working on Mater alongside our original Assure and Assure Lock 2 lines, but due to the increasing complexity of the standard, we found that we could rapidly implement Mater with the Assure Lock SL.” can do.” The edge “This is a more limited experience based on where the Matter standard is at today. … Knowing that the Matter experience will evolve over time, we have created this initial offering at this time to serve Matter early adopters. decided to issue.

Yale isn’t the only lock maker to cite issues with Miter as a reason for the slower-than-expected rollout of Miter products. When it released its thread-capable Schlage Encode Plus with Home key, Schlage said it had the hardware to support Mater. However, it later reversed course, saying it would not upgrade the lock due to changes in the mater spec and slow adoption by platforms (as noted by Alexa). Even then Does not support smart locks). Instead, Sledge said it would release a new product line to support Mater, but we’ve seen no sign of that.

This makes Yale’s Assure SL the first Matter smart lock to work exclusively on the Thread protocol. The thread should address one of the biggest issues with smart door locks; Replacing batteries every three to six months. Thread is designed to consume less power than Wi-Fi, be more responsive, and work away from Wi-Fi routers due to Thread’s meshing capability.

While it took half a year, we now have options for Matter smart locks and the Matter smart home arrival is starting to be fully featured, along with lighting, sensors, plugs and thermostats.