I ditched physical keys entirely with as Yale Assure 3 years ago and will never go back. In all that time there has never been a single time where I, the wife, or anyone else wished there was a physical key "backup". It has never once been necessary. Yale Assure has its own clever backup if the batteries were to die, and that's never happened because it did not fail to notify me in plenty of time, the one time the batteries needed replacing.
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Review: The Level Lock+ Makes Unlocking Your Home Easy, But It Isn't the Most Secure
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I’m still on a Gen 2 August lock (Yale bought them years ago) which can be had for super cheap these days , around $100. Doesn’t need a hub if it’s near a home hub device. And flawless via Bluetooth and HomeKit and their own keypad. Also old school AA batteries so easy! If you don’t have a home hub device buy a later model with built in WiFi voila.
You must have great luck with tech. I have the exact opposite: if there’s a bug, I’ll find it during regular usage, usually at the most annoying time.
I wonder if Level advertises here? Is that why they've gotten 3 articles now for this lock?
Awful company to deal with. Next to no post-launch dev support.
I hope the author runs this lock for several months, so they can appreciate just how broken things can be.
Their prior top of the line lock - the Level Touch has:
- random unlocking that isn't logged in the app (your door is left unlocked)
- lobotomized since iOS 16 - thinks you're on the other side of the door, so bluetooth unlocking when you arrive home doesn't work - and unlocks itself when you get close to the door with your phone sometime afterwards (in my case, usually happens 15-20 minutes after I'm home).
- touch feature is insanely slow (much faster to get out your key)
- using the cards or fobs that they sell separately is similarly slow
- their "low" audio option is quite loud - all of your neighbours in an apartment/condo complex will know you have a smart lock (so, so much for stealth)
- chews through CR2 batteries every 3 months
Edit: All of that is with their own software - the unreliability of HomeKit automations, you can't lay at their feet (I didn't use them).
Awful company to deal with. Next to no post-launch dev support.
I hope the author runs this lock for several months, so they can appreciate just how broken things can be.
Their prior top of the line lock - the Level Touch has:
- random unlocking that isn't logged in the app (your door is left unlocked)
- lobotomized since iOS 16 - thinks you're on the other side of the door, so bluetooth unlocking when you arrive home doesn't work - and unlocks itself when you get close to the door with your phone sometime afterwards (in my case, usually happens 15-20 minutes after I'm home).
- touch feature is insanely slow (much faster to get out your key)
- using the cards or fobs that they sell separately is similarly slow
- their "low" audio option is quite loud - all of your neighbours in an apartment/condo complex will know you have a smart lock (so, so much for stealth)
- chews through CR2 batteries every 3 months
Edit: All of that is with their own software - the unreliability of HomeKit automations, you can't lay at their feet (I didn't use them).
...which might also "save" you from claiming on your insurance or getting the thief prosecuted if there's no sign of forced entry & you can't prove you didn't negligently leave the door unlocked.
There seems to be an assumption here that the only purpose of a door lock is to prevent opportunistic burglars from casually nicking your TV and peeing on your carpet. That's certainly a major justification, but if a thief is targeting a particular item of value, if you're in a multi-occupant property, if you've got a crazy vengeful ex etc. then they might just take the time to pick an easily pickable lock.
If an expert lock picker is targeting you, you're probably stuffed, but I'll still take the lock with the extra guard pins and gubbins that at least rule out the simplest bumping and raking attacks that anyone can learn thanks to YouTube University.
The only thing anybody is complaining about here is that this rather expensive lock comes with the cheapest and most vulnerable of locking mechanisms. Nobody is expecting "unpickable" - just security proportionate to the price of the product.
...and if you're concerned about security you should be fitting toughened glass, bars, sturdy frames (where you can't just pull out the plastic bead and lift out the pane) as well as fitting good door locks. That's not an excuse for premium-priced locks being trivially easy to pick.
We’ve been using the Level Touch for two years with absolutely zero problems 🤷🏻♀️
We have not experienced any of what you describe
Agreed.
The premium price comes from the tech, though, not a higher level of security. Level isn’t advertising this lock as more secure than others; it is positioning it as more convenient. (And as we know, convenience is often exactly the opposite of security.) I do agree, though, that this lock should perform much better than it does.
I want one of these Home Key locks, but I’m not going to spend the premium the companies charge for it.
Regardless, good post. 👍🏼
...but - as LockPickingLawyer says in their video, first and foremost, this is a lock. However much money and effort has gone into the tech (which is potentially very secure), if the mechanical part is too easy to pick then it's the same principle as your "super-secure door next to unprotected window" scenario.
I'd reiterate that nobody is expecting the lock to be exceptionally secure (I'm sure you can spend more than $330 on an insanely secure non-smart lock) - but it needn't have been left so vulnerable to the easiest "Lockpicking for Dummies" picking techniques.
NB - according to the LockPickingLawyer video, the lock uses a standard lock cylinder which you could "replace with something more robust" - but in that case, the makers could have shipped it with something better instead of going all "minimum viable product".
I looked it up, thank you. Not sure I want to wait still and maybe see an improvement. Overall pretty disappointed with the product. If it can’t work with a HomePod mini within 5 feet, not sure I want to give them my money. I’m gonna replace with an august.
This is a Euro Cylinder lock. I don't know if you have these in the USA but there are hundreds of millions of them in Europe.
Can you see the screw hole middle bottom that secures the lock in the door? The metal around it is just a couple of mm top and bottom meaning to get in you just have to get something a wrench on the end, wiggle it from side to side and metal fatigue will do the rest in about 30 seconds.
I don't think anyone worries about picking or bumping locks these days.
Can you see the screw hole middle bottom that secures the lock in the door? The metal around it is just a couple of mm top and bottom meaning to get in you just have to get something a wrench on the end, wiggle it from side to side and metal fatigue will do the rest in about 30 seconds.
I don't think anyone worries about picking or bumping locks these days.
Attachments
I really like that this looks just like a normal deadbolt. Unfortunately the color options don’t match what I already have installed. Still I’m tempted to buy one once they enable thread support.
appleinsider.com
As for the lock picking, according to this article you should be able to replace the key cylinder with something stronger.
appleinsider.com
Level Lock had hidden Thread radio, will support Matter over Thread | AppleInsider
Unbeknownst to buyers, Level included a secret Thread radio in all of its well-reviewed smart locks that will soon be updated to support Matter.
appleinsider.com
As for the lock picking, according to this article you should be able to replace the key cylinder with something stronger.
Level Lock+ HomeKit smart lock can be picked open in seconds | AppleInsider
Level Lock+, a Homekit-supporting smart lock with Apple Home Key support, has been demonstrated to be opened by skilled hands in the same time a regular lock can be, but it's still a high-grade lock for your front door.
appleinsider.com
You don't even need to bump it, that would require specialized tools. Any lock that can be raked open this easily should be illegal. I could show an 8 year old in minutes how to easily defeat this lock.
I beg to differ, anyone who knows even the basics of lock manipulation will tell you for a fact that all those brands you mentioned at least require PICKING....RUNNING A RAKE IN & OUT OF THE KEYWAY WITH A LITTLE TENSION IS HARDLY LOCK PICKING.....Setting pins into a shear line one by one for an open takes years of practice, learning, focus and the motor senses to apply the slightest touch, many people take it up and never get it. THIS is not lock picking, raking at a pin set is either the first thing u try for ***** and giggles to rule out if the lock is just a joke of a **** lock, and is even often skipped by more experienced pickers familiar with a known high quality unit. I could teach an 8 year old to bend a piece of scrap put it in and hold a steady light torque while running a spiked pic in & out of it like im givin the prom queen the what for, hardest part would be taking the time to file out a rake out of ground scrap, unless some good side cutters are nearby to cut one out.
That may be true, but I would feel like less of an idiot since I didn't spend 10x more on this similarly pickable lock.
No I don't think any of you are paying attention. It took a BEGINNER 30 seconds to get in the lock, ANYONE else would have gone thru the motions of the obligatory 'due diligence' rake attempt and been just shocked beyond belief to get an open. Raking is not lock picking I could show an 8 year old girl or boy how to pick up some metal bend it, apply light tension and give it the business with a homeade rake pick like your giving Betsy the what for. Any lock that opens that easily should be against the law.
I bought the Level Touch back in spring of 2022, mainly because I wanted the touch-to-lock and touch-to-unlock functionality. Touch to lock has worked reliably ~99% of the time. Touch to UNlock worked reliably~75% of the time for the first 5 months, and then in Sep 2022 it stopped working entirely. I complained to Level, they gave me some trouble-shooting steps (including completely erasing level app and resetting the lock to factory settings), and still no joy. As a customer service measure, they sent me a Level + as a direct swapout replacement, which I installed in December 2022 (I returned the Level Touch to them in same box).
The Level + is better in that it has homekey, so I can just hold up my phone to unlock and that has been ~95% reliable. But the touch to unlock functionality still doesn't work on the Level +. (See "cons" below for details on why it is not working, likely related to iOS updates that make it harder for third party apps like Level's to track your location in the background.)
Below is my Amazon review of the Level Touch. All the below applies to the Level +, with the exception that Level + has Homekey which is now the easiest reliable way to unlock on a day to day basis.
Pros:
-Touch to LOCK works reliably. (Touch to UNLOCK does not. See cons below.) Makes it easy to quickly lock the door without your phone or the key when exiting the home.
-Works with homekit. So you can ask Siri to unlock the door and, after maybe a 5 second delay, she will. Probably the quickest way to unlock the door is with "touch to unlock", but that hasn't worked reliably for me. Second quickest way is probably the physical key. Third quickest way is NFC keycard (slight delay after holding up the card). Fourth quickest would be taking out your phone, swiping down for control center, and then tapping your homekit shortcut for the lock to unlock it through homekit.
-Remote lock and unlock via the Level App or homekit seem to work reliably.
-It is handy to be able to create "guest passes" using the level app, that allow you to send a code to a relative that will give them the ability to unlock the door. Used it with my sister when they were planning to visit and arrive at a time when I couldn't be home.
-Level has good customer support and stands by their products and takes action to ensure customer satisfaction.
-small and unobtrusive design make it a “stealth” smart lock
Cons:
1) TOUCH TO UNLOCK IS UNRELIABLE. DO NOT EXPECT IT TO WORK AS ADVERTISED.
The touch to unlock feature worked ~75% of the time between April 2022 and Sep 2022, and then the feature stopped working entirely in September 2022 and hasn't worked reliably since (for both my wife and myself). The problem seemed correlated with an iOS update installed at the time on my iPhone, but after multiple iOS and Level software/firmware updates since September 2022, the behavior is the same: Touch to Unlock only works if I pull out my phone and open the Level app, and watch as the text indicator in the app goes from "touch to unlock not ready" to "touch to unlock ready". After that I can touch the lock and it will indeed unlock, but of course having to pull out your phone completely eliminates the value of touch to unlock. It's not the touch sensor that is the problem (the touch to LOCK feature works reliably every time), it is the fact that the Level app needs to track your location relative to a geofence and needs to run in the background on your phone in order to indicate to the lock that it is safe to enable "touch to unlock". Somehow that is not happening in the background anymore, reportedly due to Apple iOS and Android updates that are out of Level’s control, and so you need to open the Level App for it to update your location and enable touch to unlock.
Level Support gave me trouble-shooting tips to try (enable background app refresh, enable precise geolocation in iOS settings, "boost range" in Level app", etc.). But Support ended up telling me the following (copy-pasted verbatim from support email):
"My Engineer was able to confirm that based on the telemetry of your lock you are currently being impacted by operational delays. Apple has introduced changes in recent OS updates that affect how apps like ours are able to operate in the background. The result of these changes is a delay in the response of the Touch-to-Unlock feature. Our engineering teams are already aware of this and are working on updates to address it and improve functionality. At this time there is not currently an ETA for when these updates will be released, but rest assured it is a top priority."
I called Level Support again recently to initiate a warranty refund request, and as a last ditch effort to get it working they gave me instructions for a factory reset of the lock, which involves removing the lock from the app, removing it from homekit, physically disassembling it to access a reset button on the motor. then I'll have to re-add the lock to Level, and re-add it to homekit, re-add my wife's as a user, re-add my kids' NFC key cards, then spend another 24-hour cycle where I leave the geofence and return to test whether the touch to unlock starts working again.
After doing this I noticed a slight improvement. Now, touch to unlock would usually work (say more than 50% of the time), but only after waiting patiently and touching the lock repeatedly for at least 10+ seconds while standing at the door. This was better since I no longer had to take out my phone, but still not the 75%+ (without delay) functionality I was experiencing before September. And my wife would rarely have the patience to stand there and tap for ten seconds, and ended up pulling out her phone anyway.
After some discussion and seeing that I’d applied the troubleshooting in good faith, Level agreed to take my level touch back since it was not functioning as originally advertised, and shipped me a Level Lock+ as replacement, which more than satisfied me. This is why I still recommend them, because they went out of their way to try and help me get the lock working as advertised, and when it still didn’t work 100% they put their money where their mouth was and offered me an upgraded replacement. They also were proactive about following up with me to check whether my troubleshooting attempts worked.
In summary:
-If the touch to unlock functionality is important to you, keep in mind that it may not work reliably and even if it does at first it may stop working due to iOS or Android updates that are out of Level’s control.
2) NFC key cards randomly stop working. I gave my kids the two NFC keycards included with the lock after setting them up on the lock and testing them. The key cards worked reliably for about two months, and then suddenly stopped working. (Luckily I'd given my kids backup physical keys so they could still use the lock if it didn't work.) I went into the Level app and "removed" the two NFC keycards, and then re-added them. Now they both work again. But the lesson is clear: don't count on the NFC keycards to work reliably. Always have a physical key in your pocket as backup.
The Level + is better in that it has homekey, so I can just hold up my phone to unlock and that has been ~95% reliable. But the touch to unlock functionality still doesn't work on the Level +. (See "cons" below for details on why it is not working, likely related to iOS updates that make it harder for third party apps like Level's to track your location in the background.)
Below is my Amazon review of the Level Touch. All the below applies to the Level +, with the exception that Level + has Homekey which is now the easiest reliable way to unlock on a day to day basis.
Pros:
-Touch to LOCK works reliably. (Touch to UNLOCK does not. See cons below.) Makes it easy to quickly lock the door without your phone or the key when exiting the home.
-Works with homekit. So you can ask Siri to unlock the door and, after maybe a 5 second delay, she will. Probably the quickest way to unlock the door is with "touch to unlock", but that hasn't worked reliably for me. Second quickest way is probably the physical key. Third quickest way is NFC keycard (slight delay after holding up the card). Fourth quickest would be taking out your phone, swiping down for control center, and then tapping your homekit shortcut for the lock to unlock it through homekit.
-Remote lock and unlock via the Level App or homekit seem to work reliably.
-It is handy to be able to create "guest passes" using the level app, that allow you to send a code to a relative that will give them the ability to unlock the door. Used it with my sister when they were planning to visit and arrive at a time when I couldn't be home.
-Level has good customer support and stands by their products and takes action to ensure customer satisfaction.
-small and unobtrusive design make it a “stealth” smart lock
Cons:
1) TOUCH TO UNLOCK IS UNRELIABLE. DO NOT EXPECT IT TO WORK AS ADVERTISED.
The touch to unlock feature worked ~75% of the time between April 2022 and Sep 2022, and then the feature stopped working entirely in September 2022 and hasn't worked reliably since (for both my wife and myself). The problem seemed correlated with an iOS update installed at the time on my iPhone, but after multiple iOS and Level software/firmware updates since September 2022, the behavior is the same: Touch to Unlock only works if I pull out my phone and open the Level app, and watch as the text indicator in the app goes from "touch to unlock not ready" to "touch to unlock ready". After that I can touch the lock and it will indeed unlock, but of course having to pull out your phone completely eliminates the value of touch to unlock. It's not the touch sensor that is the problem (the touch to LOCK feature works reliably every time), it is the fact that the Level app needs to track your location relative to a geofence and needs to run in the background on your phone in order to indicate to the lock that it is safe to enable "touch to unlock". Somehow that is not happening in the background anymore, reportedly due to Apple iOS and Android updates that are out of Level’s control, and so you need to open the Level App for it to update your location and enable touch to unlock.
Level Support gave me trouble-shooting tips to try (enable background app refresh, enable precise geolocation in iOS settings, "boost range" in Level app", etc.). But Support ended up telling me the following (copy-pasted verbatim from support email):
"My Engineer was able to confirm that based on the telemetry of your lock you are currently being impacted by operational delays. Apple has introduced changes in recent OS updates that affect how apps like ours are able to operate in the background. The result of these changes is a delay in the response of the Touch-to-Unlock feature. Our engineering teams are already aware of this and are working on updates to address it and improve functionality. At this time there is not currently an ETA for when these updates will be released, but rest assured it is a top priority."
I called Level Support again recently to initiate a warranty refund request, and as a last ditch effort to get it working they gave me instructions for a factory reset of the lock, which involves removing the lock from the app, removing it from homekit, physically disassembling it to access a reset button on the motor. then I'll have to re-add the lock to Level, and re-add it to homekit, re-add my wife's as a user, re-add my kids' NFC key cards, then spend another 24-hour cycle where I leave the geofence and return to test whether the touch to unlock starts working again.
After doing this I noticed a slight improvement. Now, touch to unlock would usually work (say more than 50% of the time), but only after waiting patiently and touching the lock repeatedly for at least 10+ seconds while standing at the door. This was better since I no longer had to take out my phone, but still not the 75%+ (without delay) functionality I was experiencing before September. And my wife would rarely have the patience to stand there and tap for ten seconds, and ended up pulling out her phone anyway.
After some discussion and seeing that I’d applied the troubleshooting in good faith, Level agreed to take my level touch back since it was not functioning as originally advertised, and shipped me a Level Lock+ as replacement, which more than satisfied me. This is why I still recommend them, because they went out of their way to try and help me get the lock working as advertised, and when it still didn’t work 100% they put their money where their mouth was and offered me an upgraded replacement. They also were proactive about following up with me to check whether my troubleshooting attempts worked.
In summary:
-If the touch to unlock functionality is important to you, keep in mind that it may not work reliably and even if it does at first it may stop working due to iOS or Android updates that are out of Level’s control.
2) NFC key cards randomly stop working. I gave my kids the two NFC keycards included with the lock after setting them up on the lock and testing them. The key cards worked reliably for about two months, and then suddenly stopped working. (Luckily I'd given my kids backup physical keys so they could still use the lock if it didn't work.) I went into the Level app and "removed" the two NFC keycards, and then re-added them. Now they both work again. But the lesson is clear: don't count on the NFC keycards to work reliably. Always have a physical key in your pocket as backup.