5 reasons a smart lock is still the worst home "upgrade" you can buy

Published Aug 11, 2026, 9:45 AM EDT Adam has a degree in Engineering and has a life-long interest in technology. He has been writing for over a decade for various print and online publications, with a focus on consumer tech. He joined How-To Geek in 2024 while working at Pocket-lint. As well as being a long-term fan of Apple products, he also has a strong interest in smart home tech, running a Home Assistant server at home to automate all his smart home devices. He believes that the ideal smart home should work with minimal interaction from the user, with automations running as if by magic rather than requiring you to push buttons on a control panel. You can find more of his work on Muck Rack. There are plenty of smart devices that are significant upgrades over their dumb equivalents. A video doorbell, for example, is much more useful than a standard doorbell. While smart locks do offer some useful features, there are plenty of reasons why replacing your current lock might not be the best idea. A real lock doesn't rely on batteries Without power, your smart lock is useless Credit: Ismar Hrnjicevic / How-To Geek This is one of the biggest issues with a smart lock. Due to the nature of smart locks, they're not really possible to connect to constant power. You can’t have a power cable hanging out of the lock when the door is going to be opened and closed. That's why almost all retrofit and replacement smart locks use batteries. The problem is that if the batteries run out, your smart lock doesn't just become dumb; it becomes completely useless. While many smart locks still allow you to operate the lock using a key, all of the smart features that caused you to buy the smart lock in the first place are no longer available. Some smart locks do have backup battery systems, but even these aren't foolproof, since the backup battery can run down just as easily as the original battery can. A smart lock needs connectivity to work If your connection is down, your lock may be too Credit: Mark LoProto / How-to Geek Another issue with smart locks is that even when they have power, they may still not work. To control a smart lock remotely, which is one of its most useful features, you need some kind of wireless connection, whether that's Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, Z-Wave, or some other method. If the connection that provides remote access goes down, you may be completely unable to control your smart lock remotely. Some smart locks can use multiple methods such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, but if you're not in Bluetooth range and you don't have a Wi-Fi connection, then there's no way to control the lock remotely. Some locks also rely on separate hubs or bridges, and if these fail, your access to the smart lock can be lost. A dumb lock can get jammed, or you might lose the key, but there are only a handful of ways it can go wrong. With a smart lock, you're effectively adding more and more ways for your lock to fail. Your door may not be in a position to be locked The quirks of your door may not suit a smart lock Credit: Bertel King / How-To Geek Another problem with smart locks is that your door needs to be in the correct position in order for the smart lock to work. If the door is wide open, for example, then triggering the lock isn't going to make any difference; your door will remain wide open. Some smart locks come with contact sensors so that you can tell if the door is shut properly before you lock it, but this isn't much use if you want to lock the door remotely and the door isn't properly shut. Even when the door is closed, a smart lock may not be able to work. I have an exterior door that will only lock when the handle of the door has been physically lifted upwards. If this hasn't happened, the door can't be locked, and any connected smart lock would simply jam. Smart locks do not come cheap You're paying a lot to replace something that already works If you want to replace your dumb doorbell with a video doorbell, you can find cheap models for under $30. Even a cheap video doorbell from a recognizable brand can be $50 or less. The same isn't always true of smart locks. While you can find models for under $100, popular smart locks usually hit three figures, and the best models can set you back $300 or more. In comparison, you only need to spend around $20 to get a reasonable quality dumb lock for your door. That's quite a leap in cost, so you need to ask yourself whether the features that you get from a smart lock are worth paying the significant price difference. Many features of smart locks can be replicated in other ways, making this price difference even more stark. For example, a cheap contact sensor can tell you if your door is open, a standalone keypad lock can give you entry using a PIN, and seeing who was at the door may be possible using your video doorbell feed. Remote control is really the main key feature that's not simple to recreate. You're providing more ways to break into your home No smart lock is completely secure Credit: Tim Brookes / How-To Geek You only need to look on YouTube to learn how easy it can be to pick a lock. A dumb lock is not inherently more secure than a smart lock. It's also far from the case that burglars are regularly breaking into homes by hacking smart locks. However, adding a smart lock to your front door does increase the risk a little by adding additional attack surfaces that don't exist on a purely mechanical lock. For example, if someone gains access to your smart home server, they could trigger the smart lock to unlock remotely, or a poorly-written automation could cause your door to unlock when you don't intend it to. Smart locks are fairly secure on the whole, but there have been examples of genuine smart lock vulnerabilities that have been exposed. The risk isn't high, but it is still a risk you need to be aware of. Smart locks can be useful in the right circumstances This isn't to say that you should never buy a smart lock. If you run an Airbnb, for example, a smart lock can be an effective way to grant and revoke temporary access to a property. Unless you really need remote control of your lock, however, then a smart lock may not always be the major upgrade that you might think it is.