Keeping your home secure is important to anyone, whether you own or rent. But, traditional locks require you to carry keys and are only usable when you are in front of them. The ability to check the status of your door, or even let in a family member who has forgotten their key is a big advantage. That is what the Kwikset Halo smart locks are all about.
What are Halo locks?
Halo locks are Wi-Fi-enabled smart locks that can be controlled with your smartphone using the Kwikset app. Kwikset Halo is the latest in smart lock technology, and it offers ultimate security and convenience. With Kwikset Halo, you can manage your locks from anywhere there is an internet connection. Lock and unlock, manage user codes, view lock activity, receive lock notifications, and much more!
The company offers several different products within the Kwikset Halo brand, each with its own set of features.
Halo Touch
The Halo Touch integrates biometrics into the lock, allowing you to lock and unlock the door with just your fingerprint. It can hold up to 100 fingerprints for 50 users, which is a huge collection of users. While a standard home might not have that many people coming and going, a larger rental property might, with cleaning staff, owners, maintenance workers, etc.
All of the user management is done from the app, making it easy to add and remove new people, or even rescan fingers. And because Kwikset is a lock company first, you know that the security is still going to be top-notch. You can get one right now for $249.
Halo Touchscreen Deadbolt
The Halo Touchscreen Deadbolt is the most advanced product in the Kwikset Halo lineup. This lock offers all of the features of the other locks, but it also has a touchscreen keypad for easy entry. The touchscreen keypad can be personalized with up to 16 user codes, and you can choose to have either a numeric or alphabetic code.
This lock operates on four AA batteries, which are included, and it fits standard door preparations. It is available in both satin nickel and Venetian bronze finishes. They are available now for $229.
Halo Keypad
The Halo Keypad is the most basic product in the Kwikset Halo lineup. It is a keyless, touchscreen entry lock that operates on four AA batteries, which are included. This lock fits standard door preparations and comes in both satin nickel and Venetian bronze finishes.
It can hold up to 20 user codes, and you can choose between numeric and alphabetic codes. The best part about this keypad is that it's Bluetooth-enabled, so you don't even need an internet connection to use it! Just pair it with your smartphone and you're good to go. You can get one right now for $199.
Summary
The locks are all available now from Amazon, Home Depot, and Lowe's. To learn more, you can also check out the company's website.
Interview by Allante Sparks of PLuGHiTz Live Special Events.
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So it looks like we do have our guests here from Kwikset. Am I speaking with Doniie?
Yeah, that's correct. Hello.
All right, fantastic. It's a pleasure to meet you. Go ahead and introduce yourself and talk about the company.
Yeah, so my name is Donnie Viajar, and am a product marketing manager for Kwikset I'm responsible for smart luck products, the Halo line of products that are all Wi-Fi enabled, as well as our connected products mostly Z-Wave and ZigBee 3.0 products.
Fantastic. So what do you have to show us today?
Yeah, I don't know if you can see in the background, but we do have our Halo Wi-Fi products that are already out in the market today and there are three different flavors here. This one is a biometric, your fingerprint, you use it to lock and unlock the front door. It can hold up to 100 fingerprints, or 50 users, capable of holding that. These are all managed by the Kwikset app, and this is the keypad version, and this is the touchscreen version here that you can see. So these are all already available in the market today. That runs obviously having Wi-Fi is that you can connect directly without needing a hub to your home Wi-Fi network.
Excellent. All right, that's fantastic. What are the different price ranges we have for these three products?
Yeah, so let me review that quickly. This is the MSRP here is at 249 for fingerprint and the keypad is at 199. The touchscreen is at 229 MSRP.
Excellent. Now, what are the major benefits of connecting this device to your home Wi-Fi?
So you're able to manage it remotely while using your app, you don't have to be directly within the lock to be able to manage it. You can add users or issue a PIN code to a guest that you're expecting. You can do this all remotely.
Excellent.
Additionally, it has the ability because you have that Wi-Fi connectivity, we have done cloud-to-cloud integration with the voice assistant so you're able to pull all these locks using Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa.
Okay. So what kind of commands can you tell it?
Yeah, so you can actually lock the door, or you can unlock it. That would be the use case for it is to unlock it and then we'll be prompted for your security code to allow it to unlock the front door.
Got you. Okay, I want to make sure there wasn't any, anything like crazy cool that you can do with it. I mean, but that sounds really fantastic. I mean, to have something that you can, you know, we're going into the smart home phase of this all and so it's nice that the door locks are coming into that phase as well. I'm pretty familiar with biometric locks. It's nice to see that this one is going into the smart home side of things.
Yeah, definitely. Right. And just why I wanted to mention is people are concerned about keeping it. So all your fingerprint locks I wanted to mention and emphasize that it's kept locally on the lock, not on the cloud. So there's that's additional security that's been implemented with a specific lock.
Absolutely. Now, let me ask you this. I'm assuming that these are battery-powered, correct?
Yeah, these are battery-operated. Four double-A batteries are included. The lifetime that we're saying is that depending on the use, right? If based on 10 uses mean lock and unlock per day, the batteries should last six months. However, obviously, if it's in use more than that, then you'll get a shorter lifetime, right?
Yeah, absolutely. That makes sense. Now, let me ask you this. How do you prevent things like remote hacking?
So, again, one of the features that I mentioned is that the fingerprint is kept locally on the lock itself, right? And there is encryption to the actual data that's being passed to the cloud. So that's encrypted data. So those are some of the things that were implemented in the locks themselves to make sure that it's secure.
Fantastic. It definitely sounds like you guys took the measures to make sure that this is nice and safe and secure. Even being on Wi-Fi. So that is fantastic. Now, let me ask you, where can you find these products?
So the Halo products is available at any of the retail-like Home Depot, Lowe's, and obviously amazon.com, as well. For Lowe's, it's in-store and Home Depot. They're all in-store as well as on the Dotcom that you can find these locks
Alright, fantastic. Are there any other points or features that you would like to talk about that I haven't touched on?
Yeah, there's actually another product that I wanted to cover services are ZigBee. This has this was released late last year, like the November timeframe. This is our Z-Wave 700 version, our Home Connect 620. Home Connect 620. And what makes it unique is that it's based on a Z-Wave 700. So with Z-Wave 700 better security, easier to enroll with your panel or your hub made it easier. We implemented a QR code to make it easier to install for the consumer. And then our builder market is really keen on this product. MSRP is at 149 and it has it can keep up to 250 user codes. It's available for this product. Our previous version of Z-Wave 500, is only capable of 30 user codes. In addition to that, the distance is twice the range that was available with Z-Wave 500. So battery life is 18 months. So a year and a half the battery would last with the Z-Wave 700 product.
That's a that is a huge jump up. That's pretty fantastic. With any of these products that you've shown us so far can you get anything like custom keys made for these?
Yeah. So, if you are looking at the physical key, this comes with all the products that I've covered. Halo and the Home Connect 620 have what we're calling the smart key security. So you can actually easily re-key this when someone vacates like you have a rental place, or if you lose the key. As long as you have one of the original keys available, you can re-key this to a different key in a matter of less than a minute.
Sure. Now, what do you do in the case you don't have one of the copies of the key? Do you just replace it?
You will need one original or replace that portion of it?
That's understandable. Yeah. Okay. Is there anything else that you would like to show off? I like what I'm seeing so far.
Yeah, again, you know, I just wanted to emphasize these products are available today. You can go to your retailers, Home Depot and Lowe's. It will be there in-store as well as online.
Excellent. So Home Depot you mentioned Amazon, Lowe's, and things like that. That's excellent. Thank you very much for taking the time to show off these products for me and I look forward to I might have to go out and check out some myself.
Okay. Thank you so much for having me.
Absolutely. Enjoy the rest of your show. All right?
All right. Take care.
All right.
TPN CES 2022 coverage is executive produced by Michele Mendez. Technical Directors are Kurt Corless and Adam Barker. Associate producers are Nancy Ertz and Maurice McCoy. Interviews are edited by Jo Mini. Hosts are Marlo Anderson, Todd Cochrane, Scott Ertz, Christopher Jordan, Daniele Mendez, and Allante Sparks. Las Vegas studio provided by HC Productions. Remote studio provided by PLUGHITZ Productions. This has been Tech Podcasts Network Production, copyright 2022.
