Smart locks for the knob, not the deadbolt?

@GSzabados
Yale do have a Euro profile lock but it has issues.


It seems to be quite a different design to their other locks and hence does not support the same modules. As a result I do not believe it is possible to link to Smartthings.

There is


This requires and comes with their own special Euro cylinder and has less flexible integration options but can be used with Smartthings e.g. via Z-Wave.

After these there are a number of other lesser known brands and I don’t know how well they might work with Smartthings.



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No offense taken, I definitely understand all your convenience points.
That’s why I want to go with smart locks. Mostly for if I need to let a friend in, house sitter, etc.

My sticking point with the deadbolt is that I’ve seen the bolt not fully engage more than once. The locked doorknob is easy enough to know if it’s engaged. Just push/pull on the door after you close it.

My basement door for example, to lock the deadbolt when it’s humid or very warm out you need to push on the door while locking it. (Old door, wood swells, etc). I know that’s not the fault of the lock, I need to replace the door eventually or enlarge the strike opening for the bolt. I trust myself to make sure it’s locked, but can I trust a visitor when I’m out of town on vacation?

There’s a difference between inconvenience that brings a notable benefit and inconvenience that brings a perceived benefit.

There are lots of good reasons to have two locks on a door. A secured area that requires two people with different keys to access (such as a safe deposit box) is a good reason to deal with the inconvenience. Similarly, a situation like a retail store with a security lock only the GM has keys to makes sense for securing the building when it’s supposed to be fully closed.

However, in this case, it’s all about convenience. OP has given people access to his house, but he wants an override to be able to keep them out when it’s convenient for him.

The way he’s currently doing things is inherently less secure, because he’s not actually using his deadbolt most of the time. That makes kicking in his door a whole lot easier, which is (for the sake of this argument), the way an actual security risk is going to enter his house. Anyone OP has given a key to has already been deemed not to be a security risk.

In this case, the scenario OP described can be overcome without the inconvenience by using a smart deadbolt. Further, the smart lock gives him MORE security, because a deadbolt is significantly more secure than a handleset lock alone, which is the way OP said he primarily locks his door.

I totally see this point. It’s valid, but I still think a smart deadbolt is going to be a better option for a couple reasons:

First off, if you don’t trust that a visitor is going to make sure the deadbolt locks correctly, is there any reason to think they’re going to jiggle the handleset to make sure that lock engaged correctly? A lazy/uninformed visitor isn’t any more likely to do one than the other.

Secondly, the deadbolt (at least the Schlage one I mentioned, but I’d assume the others too) will screech at your visitor if the bolt doesn’t engage correctly. Even if they shut the door, hit the lock button and walk away, they’ll still be within earshot when it fails and the noise should cause them to investigate.

Finally, with a smart deadbolt, you can get a notification if the lock does jam, so at least you’ll know and be able to call your visitor to fix it or send someone else to correct the problem. With a handleset lock, even a smart one, you’ll have no idea if the door didn’t get latched correctly. You can also set it up to notify other people, so if you’re out of communication completely, the notification can go to your housesitter without requiring any interaction from you.

This is the ticket, and it’d be easy to do at the time you replace the deadbolt. If you’re going to change a doorknob (especially on that same door) in either scenario, why not correct the problem instead of accepting a less secure solution and leaving an easily resolved problem lingering?

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Well you’ve really helped put my mind at ease with the deadbolt option. (Warning screech, alerts, etc).

Is the ST integration pretty tight? What kind of real world battery life do you see with the schlage units you like and use? I assume they can work offline as well during a power/internet outage?

Maybe some of my concern comes from the early pin-pad (non-smart) deadbolts like we had at work. They were un-reliable. Sometimes you had to lock/unlock them multiple times just to get them to full lock/unlock. Especially with cold/weak batteries.

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My schlage locks areactually still on Wink (3 in 2 houses, as well as several rehab houses I’ve done).

The native ST integration sucks AFAIK, but there are a bunch of device handler options that make it better. The two most popular are RBoy’s apps (cost about $40 but includes all of his device handlers, not just smartlocks. He also has a few relating to thermostats, fans, cameras, etc), or one called lock manager (free). The cost of Rboy’s app and the fact that I still have a few devices on Wink is why I haven’t moved yet, but I’m finishing upgrading the couple switches (Lutron) that I still have on Wink and getting rid of it this weekend.

I installed a schlage on a friend’s house using ST and Lock Manager, and it’s decent, but I prefer the Wink integration, which is why I hadn’t changed yet. Lock manager gives you most of what I mentioned in the post, but there may be a few things I mentioned that it doesn’t. I also couldn’t get a few things to work in Lock Manager (like setting a custom auto-relock time), but the options are there. I’m assuming I just didn’t play with it long enough, and it’s my friend’s house, so I’ve never looked into it further. He likes the 30 second auto-lock timer that’s built into the lock, but I prefer a 5 minute wait so that I can bring in groceries, etc without fighting the lock.

I referred to Rboy’s documentation for a lot of the stuff I mentioned in this post, and honestly, it’s convinced me to buy it. Here’s hoping he has a black friday/cyber monday sale to save a couple bucks, haha.

As for battery life, it’s pretty good. Mine tend to last 9 months to a year and give plenty of notice when they’re going dead. You apparently shouldn’t use rechargeable batteries with the Schlage, so I just keep a stock of AA’s from Costco on hand.

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I actually bought a lifetime pass to the RBoy stuff some years ago for the thermostat stuff. I was running a zwave stat before the ecobee/nest got big. :grinning:

You sold me, now it’s just too decide on buying one (front /main door) or two (one for the basement door.). We rarely use the basement door and I typically keep both locks locked all the time on it.

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If the basement door doesn’t get used much, I’d start with one. The Schlage’s go on sale pretty regularly, so you probably won’t have to wait longer than Memorial day for another deal (and probably not even that long).

I also just realized that I didn’t answer an important question from your last post. Yes they do work during a power/ST outage. ST hard codes the codes into the lock so even without connectivity those codes will work. I’m not sure how it treats one time use or scheduled codes during an outage though (since those aren’t features native to the lock absent a hub). Maybe someone else can answer that.

Well I just ordered one from Amazon. Actually got an extra $10 off from the Discover cash back promo. Plus earned 5% back on it too.

@jelockwood
Thanks for all the replies. I’ve looked at the solutions and I am not so much impressed. I like the idea of the Yale deadbolt smartlock, where a keyhole is ourside together with a keypad. That makes sense for me. But the Euro cylinder smartlocks all seems to be just an addon with the key inside. I cannot imagine how you can lock a Nuki if it runs out of power and you don’t have fresh batteries at home. Maybe I am missing something in the concept of these devices.

In my setup the lock should be installed/replace an Euro cylinder in a two lock door, with doubled lock option. Top lock has to be locked first (twice) then the bottom one can be locked. It operates like a deadbolt, but it is fitted inside the door’s frame with a Euro cylinder. I am missing in all the solutions the operation from inside when the battery goes dead and a keypad outside. And of course with Z-wave. :wink:
If I would have a security door with a lift up latch, that would be easier to find a working solution for, it looks like.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

Tagging @rboy, who is an expert on locks. :sunglasses:

As far as the basic question, for all smart locks which have only interior hardware, no hardware on the outside, then if the lock goes dead, you have to open the door with the original manual key. That will always work.

The locks that have an exterior piece, in particular a pin pad, can normally be powered for long enough to enter one code by touching a 9 V battery to a particular spot on the keypad. not all locks have this feature, but many do. Note that this does not unlock the door, it just powers the pin pad so you can enter your usual pin.

If the lock goes bad altogether, then again, you should still be able to use a manual key on most of them. You just have to check the features of any specific model you are interested in.

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That’s my problem, I cannot find really the right model. I really like the idea of the Yale locks. I just cannot believe that they haven’t made the same for the European market, what is on the US market. Basically this, but for an Euro cylinder. It seems to be trivial for me, but all the Euro cylinder solutions are just a piece fitted inside on the keyhole. Not even providing a keypad outside. Or are the Yale locks have the two pieces separated without any wired connections from inside to outside?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Yale-Security-YRD226NR619-Touchscreen-Deadbolt/dp/B06WRV97HZ/

Yale do do a Euro profile lock - in fact several but none that exactly meet your requirements. They do the Conexis L1 but this is only for 3-point locking doors, they do the Entr but this does not support the connectivity you need.

Nuki has a separate numeric keypad available outside, they also do a remote fob and of course you can use their app. Like all similar locks the stand Euro cylinder is left accessible on the outside with its original keyhole. This means you should be able to use the original keys to lock and unlock the lock if the Nuki batteries go flat.

I do however agree with you the desirability that Yale do a Euro profile lock that does offer the same integration options as their Doormaster, Conexis L1 and Keyless Connected Smart Lock.


What would not make sense is for both to have numeric keypads built-in. Here in the UK it is common for doors to have a dead bolt lock and a ‘night latch’. The Yale Keyless Connected lock is for the night latch and their nearest match for the dead bolt i.e. Euro profile is their Entr lock.

Here is something to look in to as I am not 100% sure of the accuracy of this.

For a Euro profile lock you obviously need a Euro cylinder which does inside a mechanism rebated in to the door. An example is like the following.


This particular example only has the bolt mechanism for a Euro cylinder and no handle mechanism. However there are as you are probably aware Euro profile mechanisms with integral door handle mechanisms like the following.

Now I got the impression from something I read on the Nuki website although I could have interpreted it wrong that there are some of these combined mechanisms which link the unlocking of the Euro cylinder to also opening the door handle portion. (Not the reverse that opening the door handle unlocks the Euro cylinder.)

If this would help you would need to double check this and find a suitable combined Euro profile mortice and door handle mechanism.

Personally I still feel the Nuki lock with its optional numeric keypad and the fact you can use a traditional key is sufficient.

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That Yale has some weird quirks. Like you need to mount a magnet in the jamb for it.

I believe that’s to use the DPS feature with supported Yale locks/z-wave modules

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Got my schlage lock installed with the RBoy DTH and Lock user manager. All seems to be working well.

But is it normal to take a long time to lock/unlock from within the ST app? 30-40 seconds seems to be average.

That seems like a long time. Did you try a Z-wave network repair? And do you have a decent Z-wave network? I’ve never had any issues with any of my lock, but a lot of people say they require a repeater nearby unless your hub is close.

FWIW, A lot of my ST stuff has seemed a bit slow today. Not 30-40 seconds slow, but intermittently 8-10 seconds instead of 2-3.

I’ll see if it’s any better today.

My zwave is pretty solid, and I did do a repair. Hub is in the next room, and have a couple zwave switches nearby.

For what it’s worth, my deadbolt usually is slower to respond than other z-wave devices. Definitely not 30+ seconds slow, but I’d say a range of 5-15 seconds from receiving a lock command through the app or Google Voice is typical.

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In most homes, the lock and perhaps a thermostat are the only battery operated devices which receive commands from the hub. There are lots of battery operated sensors which send information to the hub, but I’m talking about the situation where the hub is telling the device to do something.

And battery operated devices are almost always slower to respond than mains powered because they “sleep“ in order to conserve battery life.

For zwave locks, specifically, you can often improve response time by adding a beaming repeater close to the lock.

FAQ: why would I need another beaming repeater if my zwave lock is already close to my hub?