ULTRALOQ Lever, Heavy Duty Smart Lock 5-in-1 Keyless Entry Door Locks, Fingerprint Lock with Keypads and Voice Guide, Smart Door Lock for Front Door, Home and Office Black

UPGRADING TO 5 STARS- UPDATE AT BOTTOMI've installed nearly 20 different smart locks over the past 10 years and this one ranks 2nd only to a Schlage z-wave model that was sadly discontinued two years ago.PROS:Really high quality through and through--even the packaging. This lock is HEAVY with lots of nice brushed metal finishes and very nicely crafted levers that look and feel high end. Everything looks and feels refined, even the mounting hardware underneath. This company put a lot of time and effort into the details, including the packaging, which even includes a customized hex key and screwdriver set.The unlocking mechanism in the lock uses an electromagnet that is virtually silent and has no motor or moving gears unlike almost every other smart lock out there. The Schlage model I love has this feature as well. Not only does it make the lock virtually silent when operating, it saves battery life and is much more reliable in the long term with no moving parts (more or less-it's a solenoid which I don't really consider a moving part for the purposes here). There's no whirring or grinding of gears when the door locks or unlocks.Comes with two physical keys so you'll never get locked out if the batteries or electronics die.The fingerprint scanner is WONDERFUL. Incredibly fast and reliable. I come in wet and/or dirty from skiing or working outside 50% of the time and I can count on one hand the number of times the scanner didn't recognize my fingerprint on the first try. Really, really good hardware and software throughout.CONS:You're pretty limited in your ability to pair this lock with a standard smart home system like SmartThings, Alexa, Homekit, etc. You're out of luck if you use Hubitat. Pairing with SmartThings only gives you lock/unlock control. There's no ability to set user codes through the app which kind of sucks. The Utec app is ok but having to use a separate branded app for setting user codes is an extra step and unnecessary hassle. I imagine they will provide better integration in the future but for now you're kind of stuck if you want to integrate the lock into an existing smart home system.There is only one option when it comes to lock sounds- on or off. No volume control. The unlock sound is rather loud so if you're installing this anywhere near other doors where people might be sleeping you're going to have to turn it off entirely. The reason that's not ideal is that it also turns off the volume for the touchscreen. When you press a number on the touchscreen, it flashes off momentarily so you know you pressed it, but the numbers are so small that they are essentially entirely covered with your fingerprint when you press them. Thus without the sound feedback it's really difficult to be sure you actually pressed the number and can move onto the next one in your door code. This is especially true if you're wearing gloves.There's also no way to customize the unlock sound or key press sounds. The unlock sound isn't terrible but it's not particularly pleasant and as stated before, it's LOUD. Volume control or customized tones would be a really nice upgrade.All in all this is a really good lock. The hardware is top notch throughout and with some minor upgrades to the software, this lock could truly be excellent.UPDATE:About a year and a half after installation, the lever on the keypad side of the lock started sagging slightly. A month later, something slipped/cracked/who knows inside the assembly so that the lever would only work when pushing it in; shortly afterwards it would just spin.I thought I was going to be out of luck but I went back to my order and saw that there was a lifetime mechanical warranty on the lock. I emailed Ultraloq through Amazon and they responded almost instantly--within just a couple of hours. They asked me for some very basic information on the lock and requested that I email my original receipt and a picture of the broken lever.Within two hours of my email, they asked me for a shipping address and said a replacement unit would be sent out immediately. They weren't kidding! The replacement lock shipped out the next morning and I received it two days later at absolutely zero charge. I was expecting only a replacement of the keypad-side of the lock as that was the defective part but they actually sent out a brand new, complete lockset in original packaging. That was amazing and I couldn't ask for better customer service than what Ultraloq provided. Updated my original four star review to five stars given the way the company honored their warranty and then went way above and beyond for me. Highly recommended again!

I wanted a smart lock for a while for my back door. I use the back door a lot since we live near my sister and brother in law, so we normally go over there to have dinner together. The annoying thing is sometimes we forget to bring the key and we have get the spare key from them.Now on to the lock, on first impression right out the box, the lock is packaged really nicely and everything was easy to access. It was so well packaged that Amazon shipped it as it without putting it in a separate box. The lock feels very high quality and have a nice weight to it. It is definitely heavy and does not feel cheap at all.For the installation part, it came with a template to help you drill out the proper hole if you door isn’t pre-drilled. My door was pre-drilled and I only had to remove the previous door knob. It fit perfectly and the best thing was there was no extra drilling needed. I was very impressed with the instruction manual, in my experience a lot of instruction tend to have a few section that aren’t explained very well and it requires some trial and error to figure it out. This did not happen to me during the installation, the instruction was clear and concise. If you aren’t into reading manual, there is an included QR code which you can scan with your phone to take you to a video. Also if you are one of those few people who actually do not have any tools around, fret not. It comes with a little nifty screw driver which have one end as a Phillip and one end as a flat head. All the screws are of type Phillip, so you will not need the flathead end for the installation. I like the screwdriver enough that I will keep it on my computer desk for small jobs. Installing the lock by took about 15 minutes.Once the locked was installed, I downloaded the app for it and it was pretty easy to navigate. There are 4 tabs: Lock status, Users, Logs, and Settings. It took no time for me to set up multiple user and have each of them set up their finger print and access code. Once all this was set up, we were all able to use our fingerprint and code without any issue. The finger printer scanner has been very responsive. My sister in law was so impressed, that she’s thinking of getting one for her back door as well. The apps also have an auto-lock feature that will enable you to set when the lock will lock itself. This is very useful for me because I actually forgot to lock the door quite often only to wake up to realized that my back door were unlock the whole night.Some other feature like smart notification and controlling the lock remotely will require you to have a Bridge Wi-Fi adapter. Without the adapter you will only be able to connect to the lock via Bluetooth which limits the smart feature of the lock. Currently if you were to buy the smart lock with the bridge bundle, you only need to pay $20 extra, but if you were to buy it separately, the bridge will run you $50. I was able to email customer service to ask if I can still get the bridge at a discounted price. I was skeptical that they would do anything about it and just when I thought I would have to buy the bridge at full price, I got a reply from customer service with a promo code to buy it at the discounted bundled price. Kudos to great customer service. If anyone plan on buying this smart lock, I definitely recommend getting the bridge adapter as well.

The Ultraloq Lever hardware seems to be sturdy and robust, or in other words, a high-quality product. Installation was fairly simple and straightforward, assuming typical homeowner DIY skills. However, while my Ultraloq Lever initially worked well, the fingerprint reader performance deteriorated over several weeks to the point where it failed to read my fingerprint on every attempt. The keypad continued to work perfectly so I was able to continue using the device albeit without the fingerprint feature. When I called tech support to create a ticket, I was pleasantly surprised by U-Tec's very responsive tech support team. It was easy to get in touch with a real person who was knowledgeable and able to help. Replacement hardware was shipped quickly and follow up emails were sent asking me for updates on my issue.I discovered the "Magic Shake" feature in which I just shake my phone to unlock the door. It's a great feature, but I'm having some difficulty getting it to work on more than one phone. I'm also experimenting with the geo fencing capability to automatically unlock the door, but haven't gotten that to work yet. I'll keep working to enable these features and if needed, I'll contact tech support for help.Overall, I'm satisfied with my purchase of the Ultraloq Lever. Even though I had a hardware issue and I haven't yet successfully configured a couple of software features, knowing that U-Tec has solid tech support gives me confidence that I'll get these features to work properly.