As a self-professed techie who always take pride in owning and trying the latest and coolest gadgets – there has been one notable omission in my home for the longest time – a smart lock.
The reason is simple – shopping for a smart lock isn’t easy. Every major smart lock manufacturers such as Samsung and Yale have a huge range of models at various price levels. The features are also confusing even for a techie – there’s RFID access cards, smart pins, bio-metric senors, bluetooth control, etc just to name a few.
At my office, we use a Yale smart lock that was left over from the previous tenant. This particular Yale lock was incredibly confusing to use. Registering new user pins or fingerprints involve removing the battery cover and then pressing a couple of special buttons and codes like how we would do cheat codes on Digimon, and is a frustrating process every time I had to do it. As the co-founder of Originally US, an award-winning mobile app consultancy, user-friendliness of a product is something I pay particular attention to.
Because of reasons such as these, I have been holding off getting a smart lock for my home for the longest time because I simply couldn’t find a product in the market that make sense.
Until I came across the Smart Mortise Lock by igloohome.
igloohome is a small (relative to their competitors) local company that got its start in 2015 during an internal hackathon held by Singtel. After having use the Smart Mortise Lock for more than a week, I would say that this is a typical case of David vs Goliath, where the product created by a small outfit massively triumphs those created by the likes of Yale and Samsung.
At S$ 649 including free installation (a limited time promotion which will run until 30th April), the Smart Mortise Lock is one of the most affordable smart lock options available in the market. Note that while igloohome is a small local outfit, the lock mechanism itself is sourced from a reputable South Korean manufacturer, so we are assured of its quality and reliability.
The installation process was easy enough. Basically, I just let the very friendly and competent technician do all the work, while I use that approximately one hour of installation time to familiarize myself with the manual.
A bulk of the installation process involves drilling larger holes into your door to allow the lock mechanism to be installed. One disadvantage of this requirement is no longer possible to change to a smaller lock in future (such as a traditional dumb lock) as those unsightly drill holes would be exposed.
While the installation is ongoing, I busy myself with the instruction manual.
QR code pairing currently does not work, so I went with manual pairing. This is actually easier than it sounds. Simply install the igloohome app on your mobile phone, look for the lock’s bluetooth name in your phone’s bluetooth setting screen and connect. That’s it.
Unlocking the lock is easy enough. You get quite a few options out of the box. You are given two RFID tags with a hook which you can attach to your purse or bag similar to how you attach a keychain. You also get two RFID stickers which you can paste anywhere you want. You also get two physical keys if your parents or grandparents at home refuses to touch technology.
Physical Keys
I pasted my RFID stickers behind my car key, so now I only really have to bring a single key out. Talk about convenience!
If you need more RFID stickers to paste on your mobile phones and all other places you can think of, you can easily purchase generic stickers from the internet. Just look for ‘ntag’ 203 or 213 stickers. I’ve ordered mine at S$ 1.55 for 10 on aliexpress!
Still, all these options pale in comparison to unlocking the lock with something that you already have.
A few of your existing RFID cards, such as the Kopitiam card, can actually be used as an ID tag to unlock the smart mortise. Note that this doesn’t mean you can use ANY Kopitiam card to unlock ANY smart mortise lock. You need to register your card to your lock before it can be used, just like registering an RFID tag.
Of course, other unlock options exist too. You can simply remember a pin and unlock by entering a pin code if you have forgotten to bring out ANY of your keys or RFID tag. You can also unlock via the mobile app provided over bluetooth connection, although this process is slow and isn’t something I would use daily.
Most other smart locks at this price range doesn’t come with a companion mobile app, making it extremely difficult to set new pin, assign new RFID cards or even know when your lock battery is going to give out.
Fortunately, igloohome’s products all work with the igloohome companion app, making it extremely convenient and fuss free to manage access cards, pins as well as to monitor the status of your lock.
The strength of igloohome’s app is that it allows you to easily manage scenarios where you need to grant all kinds of different access to your home or property. You can assign both permanent and single-use or short-term pin codes to different people without even being near your lock.
Existing pins and RFID tags can also be easily managed from your mobile app.
Conclusion
Igloohome’s Smart Mortise Lock is one of the best smart lock to buy at this price point.
If you need sophisticated features to manage different kind of access to your home or property (I’ll definitely be using igloohome for my office in future), or if you value the user-friendliness and simplicity of managing your lock through a mobile phones, or if you just want to support the gutsy Singaporean underdog fighting against other smart lock goliaths, I strongly recommend that you consider Igloohome’s Smart Mortise Lock.
Update: Igloohome just secured a USD 4 million round of investment! This will definitely give them even more ammunition to take on the big guys!
I purchased this lock over a month ago adn it is apparent that they are not ready for prime time. The support has been non-existent. The lock does not work wht the latest iPhones adn Samsungs phones. The support they have in the US is a person with a VoIP phone that you can never hear. I have tried to help them ID the problem but no answer. DO NOT BUY AT THIS POINT NOT READY FOR MARKET DEPLOYMENT
I was considering this lock after I asked to clarify that they don’t support Google XL 2 phones. But since most of my kids are using apple so I’m still considering tho..
Terrible locks. My igloohome deadbolt was riddled with problems even during the first year. There’s a reason why this lock is so cheap compared with more reputable brands. Battery compartment started rusting 6 months into usage. Each battery change was supposed to last for months but I found myself having to change new Energizer batteries every 2-3 weeks. And exactly one year into usage, when the warrantee has expired, the lock malfunctioned. The reason they gave was that the motherboard is corrupted. Just told me that over the phone. Didn’t even send anyone down to check. Said there was nothing I can do but to change to one of their newer lock models. There was also no option to apply for an extended warrantee with any of their products. Better to pay a bit more for other better brands for some peace of mind. I will never buy any of their products again