I’ve been loving my new Samsung SHS-1321 electronic door lock for a month. It is electronic and uses four AA batteries. It is suddenly completely dead. It did not give any low battery warning. The touch screen is supposed to light up when touched. I can’t get it to light up, so I can’t enter the code, and it’s not recognizing my NFC chip either.
The emergency backup is to hold a fresh 9 volt battery against its metal plates at the bottom of the lock. Tried that many times. Nothing.
Please give me any ideas that you can come up with. Thanks!
This lock is not a smart lock. It has no handle and no keyhole. It unlocks when a programmed NFC chip is held against it, after being awakened by touching the touch screen. Or a programmed code can open it, after it’s been awakened.
I called Samsung tech support. They said they can’t help me and they gave me a different phone number - the recording says only open Monday through Friday.
The office door opens by turning the glass door knob and pushing the door inwards into the office. The lock sits about 2 feet above the door knob.
P.S. I cannot break into my office. It has locked windows and is on the second floor, way out of reach.
My Yale is keyless, but the 9 volt backup works great. One of the first things I did when setting this up was to validate that the fail safe worked. It definitely opens the door for a bad scenario without a key, but being reliant on a single entry point without a backup plan (ladder to window) will get you into trouble or locked out
Thank you to all who helped me so willingly - even though this lock is not a SmartLock and none of you were under any obligation to help me at all. I was afraid that my plea would either be erased or ignored. You are all gentlemen!
I am now in my office - hooray! The solution: I called a local locksmith and he suggested I smack the binder of a book against the front of the lock. I tried that a few times, while holding my RFC against it, and it worked, I got in! Turns out the lock wasn’t exactly installed perfectly which made things difficult for its sensor so the lock wasn’t able to work as it should. I’ll have my carpenter fix that first thing Monday morning.
Yea … after trying three different kinds of locks on my office door, I finally had to resort to a keyless door lock. My teenagers are adept at stealing keys. When I got better at keeping the keys out of their hands, they learned how to pick the locks by watching YouTube videos. I do hope that my keyless lock works out well in the long run.
It would be a lot easier for a “crook” to break a window to my home or kick in the door, rather than break open this lockbox. They are very well designed. I’m not the least bit worried.
Especially if you have the lockbox hidden. Mine is completely out of view. Nobody would know it’s there unless i showed them. And it’s thick as hell. Would take someone forever to saw through it (and not destroy the keys).
But @wb70 is right, if somebody wants in badly enough, they are going to get in.
My teens are too young to own a car. Yes we’ve given them the the “don’t be a criminal in your own home” talk, and we’ve tried suspending allowance, making them do extra chores, and all the other usual punishments (nothing physical though - we don’t spank or slap - the only touching we do is hugs). Nothing we’ve tried has put a dent in the stealing. We don’t charge them rent because they are minors and don’t have jobs.
Yes, I have bought small POE dome cameras that I hope to install in the public areas of our home (hallway, kitchen, living room). (Legal in my state.) I’m hesitating though … I’m struggling with two potential downsides:
Other grownups: What will our friends think when they see security cameras inside our home? Will the sitter quit because of them? (I would feel slimy if I used hidden cameras which is why I chose overt ones instead of covert ones.)
I’m afraid our teens will hack into our wireless network & post the cameras’ images on social media. Like if I grab a midnight snack in the kitchen with hair in curlers and robe half-on. I guess I can turn the kitchen camera off with my cell phone first, but then a teen could turn it right back on if he’s hacked-in.
Are my fears valid? What are your experiences? Has anyone out there ever installed security cameras inside their home? How did people react? And is there any way to prevent a hacker from hacking in & posting images online?
tgauchat
(ActionTiles.com co-founder Terry @ActionTiles; GitHub: @cosmicpuppy)
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One advantage to “overt” cameras, is that you can instruct your sitter to feel welcome to cover the lens at any time, or at the very least, indicate that only specific rooms have them.
That’s what we did. We use a house/dog sitter for overnight vacations, and we don’t put a camera where she sleeps; even though we’d love to watch our pups sleeping with her.
As I think we’ve discussed before, the security you can set up to protect against people who are outside your home is very different then the security required for someone who has actual physical access to your system. In the second case, which is what you have with the kids who live with you, it’s really really hard to secure everything without going to commercial grade systems which are far more expensive. That’s not what people usually mean when they talk about a hacker. So most of the answers you’re going to get may not apply unless you make it very clear that these are people who live in the same home with you and have pretty much unlimited access physically to the system.
So I think your fears are valid, and if it were me, I would probably just be investing in very good locks. And family counseling. And then a camera on the inside of the Home office as we’ve discussed before.
I’m glad you got the lock fixed this time, a lot of these smart locks do require very precise alignment.
You’re right about very good locks, and you’re right that I should state the situation clearly - I’ll do it here:
My security needs are to protect mine/my husbands’ belongings from our teenagers who live with us in our home. Our teenagers may gain physical access to our in-home and outside-the-home security systems. Our teenagers seek to steal or destroy our belongings - this happens at the rate of about 3 items per week.
Before we had very good locks: They stole keys, cash, credit cards, jewelry, devices, charging bricks and cords, earbuds.
Now that we have very good locks: They steal charging bricks and cords, earbuds, and random items that are not so valuable to lock up. One has resorted to stealing at school and at stores. The other’s vandalism has picked up - sometimes doing gross stuff to our food. Three of my car’s tires have been slashed (one of our teens confessed). We now have 2 outdoor security cams facing the cars. Also, items in our home have been vandalized (such as furniture). One teen already use social media against us … if we embarrassed them on social media they would probably destroy our business by leaving tons of bad reviews everywhere online. Since we have not found any punishments that deter them, we hope that the security cameras will help.
Our teenagers have been in weekly therapy for ten years, and we have participated in family counseling during the same years. Therapy and family counseling are continuing every week and probably will for years.
You’re right - I should have a camera in my office. I will probably have the POE cameras installed in the public places of our home as well. (The kitchen at least.) I will try to have the footage exist only on the NVR, and I will only view it when something gets stolen or vandalized. I will try to find a way to view it manually (maybe I can plug my tablet into the NVR with a cable) so as to mitigate the risk of a teenager (who lives with us) hacking into our wireless network, or cloud, or one of our cell phones.
(or a secondary entrance with purely mechanical locking).
My dad threw full 12oz cans of beer at me. That explains everything!