How does a smart lock work?

You walk to your front door and ring the bell, while holding a bag of groceries and your things from work, it is raining and there is a strong wind. You want to open the front door. Where is your bunch of keys? Trouser pocket, back pocket, work bag, shopping bag. You clamp the phone between your shoulder and ear. Shaking, knocking, irritation.

Sound familiar? We've all been there. The good news is: from now on, you no longer have to walk around with keys or look for them. Smart locks are here to save you and make your life much easier.

Be sure to read on if you want to know how smart locks work and why you should never want anything else.

A smart lock is a lock that works without a key, PIN or password. An invention which you can use to unlock something via your phone or biometric data. This can be done by connecting via a WiFi network or Bluetooth.

Some Smart Locks open the door immediately. Others work with a technique where the lock unlocks but you have to open the door yourself. If your lock is connected to a Wi-Fi network, you can do integration with other smart products. For example, think of a doorbell with a camera, your smartwatch or a digital assistant from home. It also allows you to use your phone to remotely open the door for someone. Which of course makes life even easier.

With a little research online, you will find differences between mobile, PIN, RFID/NFC and other tricky terms. Therefore, it is useful to know a little more about the different options so that you can also find out how to make the best choice for your situation.

All traditional locks can be replaced by smart locks. A smart lock works with specific information from the owner. Depending on the settings, access can be granted to certain rooms, at certain times, for certain people. It is also possible to grant different people (e.g. domestic help, office employees) access to certain buildings, rooms or flats at certain times.

Now let's look at the different types:

• Mobile
  You can open the door via a WiFi or Bluetooth connection. Bold locks work via Bluetooth and do not require an internet connection. You can track to whom you have granted access via the Bold app and trace everything back regarding your Bold lock(s).
  
  
• RFID/NFC
  This is a technology that allows you to open an electronic lock using tags and/or tokens. You simply hold such a tag or token against the lock, which opens the lock.
  
  
• Smart Home
  You can link a smart lock to your smart home system. These systems can then work together with a smart doorbell, your phone and thus a smart lock.
  
  
• PIN code
  You might know this from the office: a lock with some numbers and a # to open the door. You can use this to open a door and also keep track of who is inside.
  
  
• Remote control
  Like opening the garage door, you can also open your front door with a remote control. Obviously, it's not the size of your TV, but one of those nice handy models you can hang on your keychain.

You can connect the smart locks to each other via a hub or a bridge. This requires both the locks and the hub to be connected to WiFi. The way it works with Bold is that you still have to open the door knob yourself. So when you give access, the person in front of the door has to open the door themselves. In other words, the lock does not open the door by itself, even if you do it remotely.

Of course, this is different for each Smart Lock. Bold uses 8 sizes. However, it is always crucial that you have a Euro profile lock. If you are not sure, you can watch this video. In it you can check your current locks and see if they are suitable for a Bold Smart Lock. A Bold Smart Lock replaces the cylinder of your lock. This is the part that the key normally fits into and is connected to the lever that you can use to open the door. It's not difficult and most people can do it themselves. 

To ensure that Bold fits any door - including multi-point locks - and to give you an extra sense of security, the user must always lock the door themselves. Once you have turned the smart lock, it is deactivated and the knob on the outside continues to turn.

Technology is developing rapidly and, fortunately for you as a user, electronic locks are getting better and better. But which smart lock is right for your personal situation? Do you often lose your keys or do you have adolescent children you have to make keys for every week? It could be that you rent out (part of) your house, e.g. via Airbnb, this too means you have to deal with people coming and going a lot. Or do you have an office for your business with employees or people who need to go in and out irregularly? A shop, a building with multiple tenants... You can replace any lock with a Smart lock. Both internal and external doors.

There are plenty of examples where keys can cause hassle or headaches. So that can be made easier with a Smart lock. You can grant certain people access for a certain time or open the door remotely. This way, without having to be physically on site yourself, you can let people in via your phone.

And what if your phone is empty? Excellent question. We have an answer to this.

With a Smart Lock, you replace the lock with an automatic lock. So you no longer need a key, card or code to open a door. Some locks work via Bluetooth, others via WiFi. The advantage of Bluetooth is that you are not dependent on the quality of the WiFi and do not need an internet connection. Should your phone battery run out and you want to get inside, there is always a code you have preset to get in. To do this, you turn the outside knob of the cylinder a few times to the left or right and this forms the access code. How convenient!

This varies from one smart lock to another. But the easiest for the user is a battery-powered smart lock. Then you don't have to change your entire door policy, but can set up your home with smart locks in the doors you already have. The battery of a Bold Smart Lock lasts two years on average. About six months before the battery runs out, you will receive notifications about it via the lock itself and via the app. Then the lock goes into energy-saving mode. You can easily replace the battery yourself. You can read how to do it here.

Fortunately, there are labels for that. Actually, there are two "forms" of security to consider. The security of the lock that someone can enter unwanted by picking or breaking it. But also the protection against hackers - the digital security.

Bold has been voted the safest smart lock because it has anti-core pulling protection, anti-drill and multi-point locking system. Bold Smart Lock has an SKG*** certificate. Three stars from SKG means that Bold Smart Lock has achieved the highest possible score for security. In addition, Bold is affiliated with PKVW and you can apply for a certificate with a Bold Smart Lock. The Bold Smart Lock is highly burglary-resistant. Even when using extra good tools. You can also apply for a Politie Keurmerk Veilig wonen thanks to the SKG*** certificate (only valid in The Netherlands).

You don't have to worry about digital security either. Bold Smart Lock regularly conducts hacking tests. Because the Bold Smart Lock system has several features built in to assure you of digital security, for example, messages between your Bold products and the Bold server are sent end-to-end encrypted. Each Bold product has its own unique code that cannot be copied. So your certified Bold products can only communicate with each other and with the secure Bold server.

You can find a lot of content on YouTube about hackers trying to break in and then you will see that with Bold, it is almost impossible.

Want to know more about Bold Smart Locks? Then check out our frequently asked questions.