Mr Salty has one fear: Imagine walking home late at night, and discovering someone is following you from behind. When you step out of the lift, that person follows you. So you quicken your pace and finally reaches your door. You dig into your bag for the key to unlock your door. Your key… Your F**KING KEY. YOU JUST CAN’T FIND IT AND THE PERSON IS RIGHT BEHIND YOU!!
Can you blame Mr Salty for wanting to install a digital door lock for his house? It doesn’t matter if we’re in super safe Singapore or not! Having a digital lock makes life so much more convenient!
What Are Digital Door Locks?
Also known as electronic locks, smart lock, keyless lock… They all refer to the same thing. Instead of using a key to lock one’s door, the locking mechanism is completed digitally. Close the door and the door is bolted automatically after a few seconds.
Enter a PIN, hover a token or scan a fingerprint, and the door gets unlocked. When locked, a digital door lock is just as secure as its analogue older brother. The difference lies in the locking / unlocking method.
Are Digital Locks Good?
Digital door locks are getting more popular in Singapore and it’s no wonder why, as they have plenty of benefits. Other than doing away with digging for a key, the mobile phone screen also remains free from scratches! More expensive options come with fingerprint identification and control with mobile apps via Bluetooth. Some models even come with the ability to set up multiple PINs for different users, which is good for those who are renting their houses out.
Getting the Digital Lock
With his mind set on getting a digital lock, Mr Salty went to the PC show. There were many digital locks available, like the Samsung one which was showcased with other Samsung products in the booth. In other words, Mr Salty had to squeeze past many sweaty nerds in order to take a look at the lock. No, he wasn’t interested to do that.
Instead, Mr Salty found a quiet booth, which was a reseller specialising in Yale digital door locks.
Mr Salty, being the ever stingy man, went for the cheapest lock – one with only PIN and token functions (well, he will leave out the model number for security sake).
Yale was definitely not as well known as Samsung for offering digital door locks. But hey! Yale has been a lock expert for donkey years! Surely their digital version have a certain robust in the product?
Mr Salty made a leap of faith and placed an order for the lock.
As his house was still under renovation, Mr Salty was not able to fix the installation date there and then. The salesperson assured Mr Salty that when his house was ready, all he needed to do was to call the company to arrange for the installation, and his guy will gladly show up to install his lock.
All that, while Mr Salty was still able to buy the lock at the promotional price!
Installation Process
Nearing the end of the renovation, Mr Salty called up the company and managed to arrange for the installation to take place within a week.
On the day, the installer showed up on time (throughout the whole process of getting his house ready for inhabitation, Mr Salty grew to realise that punctuality is definitely not something Singapore companies are capable of). aAter a few quick questions, he started work on the installation. Within half an hour, he was done fixing the lock and gave Mr Salty a walkthrough of the functions of his newly installed digital door lock.
Functions of Yale Digital Door Lock
Unlike the Samsung lock that Mr Salty’s mother had for her house, the Yale lock did not replace the current lock on the door. Instead, the installer fixed the Yale lock above the existing lock. In other words, both the digital and the current door could be used at the same time.
This meant that there was an opportunity to have “double locks” – locking the door with the digital one and an analog one.
That might sound like an over kill, but well, Mr Salty is a Singaporean after all! He just feel that he can sleep better at night when he bolted his door with 2 locks.
Even better, the Yale lock had a feature for a more “secure” locking. By activating a lever that can be accessed only from indoors and activated only when the door is closed, the lock goes into a “high-secure” mode. Even someone with a token or PIN will not be able to unlock the door from the outside.
Good for wives to punish hubbies who always stay out late!
Anyways, when the “high-secure” function is turned on, if someone tries to break the lock, or if the person in the house opens the door (forgetting that he had turned the mode on), a ear-piercing alarm would sound off. Yes, the installer demonstrated that to me. So Mr Salty won’t be afraid that he might accidentally lock himself out!
Of course, another feature that Mr Salty liked was that the door would automatically lock itself within 2 seconds after the door was closed. There’s no worry about forgetting to lock the door! If Mr Salty is late for the bus, he could just slam the door shut and run off, and the lock would take care of itself!
Best of all, there is no longer a need to bring a key out whenever he goes to throw out the rubbish. He will also be done worrying that he would accidentally throw the key away with the rubbish and end up locking himself out! 😛
The Potential Downside of Installing Digital Door Locks
Well, Mr Salty is one who will consider all factors. He understood that digital locks are susceptible to hacking, though this requires a very tech savvy thief.
As it turns out, the weakest link of a digital system is always human. Like the lock that Mr Salty uses, it only accepts token and PIN. Since Mr Salty also don’t like digging out his token, he is always using the PIN.
Over time, he is bound to leave fingerprint marks onto the keypad. Those prints may look invisible to the untrained eyes. However, thieves can use powder to reveal the marks, like the way police uncovers fingerprints left in a crime scene. From there, the thieves can figure out the PIN.
One way to overcome this flaw will be to give the keypad a good wipe every now and then.
Additionally, the digital door lock has a clever function. No matter what number Mr Salty keys in, as long as ends his sequence with his PIN, the lock will recognise that and unlocks the door.
First, anyone who is peeping at Mr Salty entering his PIN will not know exactly what his PIN is. Secondly, it mitigates the problem mentioned earlier. By pressing more numbers, Mr Salty leaves fingerprints on more numbers. Thieves will have a harder time to crack the PIN!
Of course, Mr Salty also came up with a Plan B to mitigate the potential security lapse. This will be left for another post.
Thoughts After Using Yale Digital Door Lock for 6 Months
It has been about half a year since Mr Salty installed the digital lock. While he won’t say that his life became heavenly, the lock definitely had not given him any trouble. If you are OK with using new technology, you can consider installing one digital lock for your home!
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Remember, salty is life!
