Are Smart Locks Safe?

“Are smart locks safe?” is the first thing most people ask, and it’s the right question — this is the one device in your home whose entire job is to keep the door shut. The honest answer is yes, a good smart lock is safe, and in day-to-day life it can make your home moresecure than a traditional lock. But “a good one” is doing real work in that sentence, so let’s break the worry into the two risks that actually matter and deal with each.

Risk one: the physical lock

A smart lock is still a deadbolt, and it has to be a good one. The electronics don’t change the fact that a burglar’s easiest attacks are physical — kicking a weak door, prying a flimsy strike plate, or finding a window. So the first thing to check is the mechanical grade: a sturdy, well-reviewed deadbolt like the ones in our best smart locks roundup resists that kind of attack exactly as a quality traditional lock would. Some, like the Schlage Encode Plus, carry a high ANSI grade specifically for build strength. Pair any smart lock with a solid door, frame and strike plate, and the physical side is covered.

Risk two: the digital side

This is the part that’s genuinely new, and it’s where people’s fears run ahead of reality. The image of a hacker silently opening your door from across the world is dramatic, but in practice, breaking into a well-made, updated smart lock remotely is difficult and rare — intruders overwhelmingly choose easier targets. The realistic digital risk is far more mundane: a weak or reused password on the account that controls the lock. Guidance from CISA and NIST on securing connected devices lands on the same practical basics, and they matter more than any exotic threat:

• Use a strong, unique passwordfor the lock’s app — never one you’ve reused elsewhere.
• Turn on two-factor authenticationso a stolen password alone can’t open your door.
• Keep the lock’s firmware updated, since updates patch security issues as they’re found.
• Secure your home Wi-Fi and your voice-assistant account, which can often control the lock too.

Do those four things and you’ve closed the door on the digital risk that actually exists.

What happens when the power or internet fails?

A common and fair worry: does a smart lock strand you if the electricity or Wi-Fi goes out? A well-designed one fails safe. These locks run on their own batteries, so a power cut doesn’t affect them, and if the internet drops you simply lose the remote features — the keypad code and, on most models, a physical key still work at the door. Good locks also warn you well before the batteries die. We go through exactly what keeps working, and how to choose a lock that never leaves you on the step, in do smart locks work without Wi-Fi.

The ways a smart lock is actually safer

It’s worth flipping the question, because a smart lock closes real gaps a traditional lock leaves open. You can hand out unique codesto family, a dog walker or a guest instead of copying keys — and revokeany of them instantly when they’re no longer needed. You can stop hiding a spare keyunder the mat, which is a far bigger real-world vulnerability than any lock’s electronics. And you get an alert if you leave the door unlocked, and can lock it from your phone. Managed sensibly, those everyday habits make a home meaningfully harder to get into.

The verdict

Smart locks are safe — buy a mechanically solid one, secure the account with a strong password and two-factor authentication, and keep it updated, and you get all the convenience with none of the scary-headline risk. If you want a lock that keeps working no matter what, prioritize one that fails safe, and see our best smart locks and keypad & fingerprint picks for models that get both the physical and the digital side right.