Just like with my car, it would be really convenient when holding kids and a load of their stuff to not have to fish out the keys.
I suppose there's the issue of your landlord locking you out if they're unhappy with something, but surely that is not purely a technological issue.
Also, cars are very different than homes. Typically we don't store truly valuable and irreplaceable items in our cars, unlike our homes. Typically we don't sleep in our cars, unlike our homes. You can easily see if someone is approaching your car, or trying to get in, when you are in it. Not necessarily the case with your home.
But offhand I can think of several horror stories about smart locks, and no good stories. The tech just seems absurdly immature at this point. And this product, in particular, is apparently known for glitching and not working, so...
Smart locks also have to consider how they'll function without electricity. An exposed slot for a battery could let an attacker instantly fry the lock from the outside.
A long time ago I got drunk at my birthday party so my wife drove us back to the beach house we rented. She parked my car so that it was about five inches overhanging someone’s driveway.
Their driveway wasn’t blocked but it was a dick move and they retaliated by shaving off candle wax into my car’s door locks. Fortunately I always used remote unlock but back then most people still used physical keys to unlock their car.
People can mess or destroy any lock. There are legitimate concerns about electronic locks for sure but I don’t understand setting the bar so much higher for them than mechanical locks.
I don’t understand setting the bar so much
higher for them than mechanical locks.
Because the reviews I've seen indicate almost all smart locks fall a long way short of the security of equally priced mechanical locks.
I'll admit my example is poor. A good smart lock wouldn't default to unlocked if electronically fried. I still think it's worth being worried about how easily and discreetly you can vandalize a lock.
The problem of those locks - or really, almost any IoT device - is that they're connected to a third-party service. This creates risk of abuse, remote hacking, remote bricking (e.g. when the vendor decides to thank everyone for the incredible journey), breach of privacy and ties user into a hostile relationship with the vendor, because the device isn't really a product anymore, but a service.
Same with key codes: internet management is not really needed for that. Of course access could be properly secured, but vendors have a really bad record of actually getting that right.
Imagine a scenario like that: You leave your car in a parking lot. One attacker follows you with a repeater. Once you're around the corner the second attacker approaches your car and opens it via the repeated radio signal and starts it.
A while ago there had been a small debate on this topic, as attackers actually used such an approach to break into cars (sometimes even stealing them) https://www.wired.com/2017/04/just-pair-11-radio-gadgets-can...
so many factors become part of the threat model, when you could stick to the physical lock, and really limit it.
https://twitter.com/internetofshit?lang=en is a pretty good example.
you could make a rfid chip reader part of your lock, but even that has weakness.
http://www.astclock.com/astclocks-blog/advantages-of-rfid-do...
tldr: limit your damn threat model/inconvenience.
I think privacy, network security, and availability are the bigger issues.
if a criminal is going to break you door, it's going to happen. but, i think people would be more suspicious of someone picking a door lock, rather then waving a Chip and the door allowing them access.
i know, alot of hotels weren't surprised to learn their room doors were amazing weak.
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/hotel-hack-digital-lock-door...
if you want a good physical lock the ANSI Grading System is a good place to start.