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Scotsman
02-08-2025
- Scotsman
SwitchBot Lock Ultra and Keypad Vision review – smart and secure, but flawed
The SwitchBot Lock Ultra and the SwitchBot vision are new launches for the tech firm | SwitchBot This article contains affiliate links. We may earn a small commission on items purchased through this article, but that does not affect our editorial judgement. SwitchBot's latest smart lock and keypad are packed with innovation and promise hands-free home security – but they're not without a few frustrations Sign up to our daily newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to Edinburgh News, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Very few people own a smart lock for their door, and it always comes as a surprise to me. They're remarkably secure, incredibly convenient, and you don't need to carry any keys with you. I've owned smart locks for years now, in various guises, and I was more than a little excited when one of my favourite tech brands, SwitchBot, announced they were launching a new one. It's called the SwitchBot Lock Ultra, and the headline upgrades over its predecessor, the Lock Pro, are pretty impressive. But the most impressive bit of smart lock tech was launched alongside the Lock Ultra - it's the Keypad Vision. And it's very, very clever. I've been using both devices together on my front door for several weeks now and, while they definitely have their strengths, they also have some weaknesses. I'll tackle both products individually, but it's worth looking at a combo deal if you fancy them, because you save a lot of money. In fact, at the moment, there's a 13% saving AND a voucher deal on Amazon, which would get you the whole setup for just over £200. SwitchBot Lock Ultra The Lock Ultra is smaller, faster, and quieter than its predecessor - but it still has compatibility issues SwitchBot is a company that's well known for innovation, and for solving complex issues with simple solutions. And so its smart locks are the simplest devices of their kind. You just clamp it to your door over the existing internal key and a motor operates the key. At least, that's the theory. The issue comes, for those of us in the UK at least, when you realise that UK standard locks can't be operated with keys in the inside of the lock and the outside of the lock at the same time. So while the SwitchBot smart lock will do a fine job of automatically locking and unlocking the door, you can't then use the key on the outside. Which is a bit of an issue. It's solved by changing the lock barrel to one with a two-way key access. And that's not easy on these shores, trust me. SwitchBot claims that the smart lock is compatible with 99% of existing doors, but that's only the case if you have the right barrel. It's fair to say, then, that my relationship with the Lock Ultra didn't get off to a great start. However, once I'd bought the correct barrel, and got it fitted, the relationship has really blossomed. Because it's a fabulous bit of kit. And, it's worth pointing out, some doors in the UK have different types of locks which won't need a double-ended barrel. It comes with wooden panels, which can help it match your door | SwitchBot Over the Lock Pro that it supersedes, it's better in just about every way. The locking mechanism works more quickly, and it's quieter. The whole unit is more compact, and it now has a built-in lithium battery with a small backup battery. It's sensible thinking and it's turned a good product into a really good product. To install it (once you've got the right barrel) you just put it all together, hook it over the key or knob, and stick it to your door. To be fair to SwitchBot there are lots of accessories and adaptors to ensure it fits well, and the instructions are excellent. Barring barrel compatibility issues, you really can't go wrong. And it's brilliantly easy to operate, too. SwitchBot's app monitors what it's doing, can lock and unlock it remotely, and there's now a one-touch button to save you the arduous task of having to manually twist the lock to lock it and unlock it. There's even a magnetic sensor included which will inform you if the door has been left open. Such is the SwitchBot smart lock's simplicity that you only have one module attached to the door, on the inside. From the outside, it's just your normal key socket. This means you can still use your conventional key if you like - handy if you have elderly relatives who don't get on with technology - or you can use SwitchBot's range of keypad devices. One of which I'll come to in a moment. The only other gripe I have with the Lock Ultra is that it occasionally wanders off its calibration point. It's very easy to fix in the app, but every other smart lock I've used has stayed straight and true. Overall though, it's impressive. Despite its compatibility shortcomings and a minor tweak being needed every few months, the battery lasts for ages, it's completely reliable, and a pleasure to use. SwitchBot Keypad Vision The Keypad Touch is a fabulous bit of tech - but there's one annoying flaw When SwitchBot launched the Lock Ultra, this new keypad design was launched alongside it, with much fanfare. And while the Lock Ultra makes your door smart, this turns it into something out of a sci-fi movie. But first, a look back. The last keypad launched by SwitchBot, the Keypad Touch, was a relatively simple affair, rather innocuous to look at, and it opened your door with either a combination of numbers, an NFC card or, quite cleverly, a fingerprint. The new Keypad Vision does all that too, but it looks a bit like a video doorbell now. And it also has a bold new feature - facial recognition. This is seriously impressive, and it works brilliantly, but I've actually switched it off on mine for reasons I'll go into shortly. Adding a keypad to your SwitchBot smart lock makes it into a truly smart system. The app makes it very easy to set up, and it will track who's using it and when. You can set up temporary access for people you only partially like, or permanent access for people you're more fond of. You can also lock it and unlock it remotely. For example, your cleaner can have her own code, as can the in-laws, or you can bestow on them an NFC card they can use to just flash their way in. Or they can each set up their fingerprints and you can control and monitor their access, or you could use the new facial recognition feature and the lock unlocks automatically as they stroll up to the door. The facial recognition is seriously clever, and it's never failed to recognise anyone I've programmed in, but it does have a bit of a flaw. An annoying quirk of the facial recognition system makes you wonder if you'd be better with older, cheaper Keypad Touch | SwitchBot Built in to the device is a voice system that guides you towards a more effective facial recognition with simple commands if you're standing in the wrong place, or if the sensor can't quite pick you up for any reason. "Please stand closer" is the sort of command the nice American lady issues. The trouble is, it's just not very clever. It can't tell when I'm trying to shoo away a double-glazing salesman, for instance. So I'll be standing with the door open, getting increasingly tired of being offered 0% finance, and the keypad is constantly telling me off for having my back to it. It's very annoying. It gets worse, too. If my postman has rung my bell and is stood at my door waiting for me to answer, because the keypad doesn't recognise him, it'll start asking him to "stand closer" or whatever. And it won't shut up about it. So I've turned off facial recognition and my life is now so much better. I've also not been able to get the NFC set up with any of my smartphones, and the geofencing isn't great. However, it's important to add that this is a brand new product, and SwitchBot is very good at correcting these relatively minor niggles with frequent updates. I haven't had one yet, but fingers crossed something is in the pipeline that will sort this out. Happily, the keypad sensor is flawless and works in an instant, and the code system is great if you're like me and your mother-in-law refuses to use biometrics because of the Illuminati, or something. But that does make me wonder why you'd opt for the new Keypad Vision when the predecessor, the Keypad Touch is less than half the price, smaller and neater, and doesn't look like a doorbell. Facial recognition is incredibly convenient, because it's completely hands free - useful if you're walking to your door with bags of shopping - but until SwitchBot sorts out the annoying American lady, I can't recommend it unfortunately. And it's a pity, because like the Lock Ultra, it's a seriously good bit of kit. Canva Get beach-ready with MySweetSmile's gentle teeth whitening range £ 20.99 Buy now Buy now Sunshine, selfies and holiday cocktails – summer is here, and so are all the moments you'll want to capture with a glowing smile. Whether you're jetting off for a beach escape or heading to a sunny staycation, MySweetSmile can help you look your best. This UK best-seller offers peroxide-free, gentle whitening that works its magic without harsh ingredients or faff. Their powder is perfect for whitening before take-off, while the handy on-the-go pen is great for keeping your smile photo-ready poolside. Shop the full MySweetSmile summer-ready range here. Canva Is your surname a clue to Viking ancestry? Start tracing your Norse roots now £ 29.00 Buy now Buy now Think you're purely British? You might be surprised. Many people across the UK – especially in northern England, Scotland and coastal areas – still carry surnames with strong Viking origins, passed down from Norse settlers who didn't just raid, they stayed. Names like Gunn, Thoresen, Croft and Skene hint at a warrior past and a shared history stretching back over 1,000 years. We've listed 30 surnames with deep Viking links – check the full list in the article here. Want to take things further? MyHeritage DNA makes it easy to build your family tree and explore your ancestry. For just £33, you can uncover your genetic links to Scandinavia and the Viking age. Your surname might be just the beginning!
Scotsman
02-08-2025
- Scotsman
SwitchBot Lock Ultra and Keypad Vision review – smart and secure, but flawed
The SwitchBot Lock Ultra and the SwitchBot vision are new launches for the tech firm | SwitchBot This article contains affiliate links. We may earn a small commission on items purchased through this article, but that does not affect our editorial judgement. SwitchBot's latest smart lock and keypad are packed with innovation and promise hands-free home security – but they're not without a few frustrations Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Very few people own a smart lock for their door, and it always comes as a surprise to me. They're remarkably secure, incredibly convenient, and you don't need to carry any keys with you. I've owned smart locks for years now, in various guises, and I was more than a little excited when one of my favourite tech brands, SwitchBot, announced they were launching a new one. It's called the SwitchBot Lock Ultra, and the headline upgrades over its predecessor, the Lock Pro, are pretty impressive. But the most impressive bit of smart lock tech was launched alongside the Lock Ultra - it's the Keypad Vision. And it's very, very clever. I've been using both devices together on my front door for several weeks now and, while they definitely have their strengths, they also have some weaknesses. I'll tackle both products individually, but it's worth looking at a combo deal if you fancy them, because you save a lot of money. In fact, at the moment, there's a 13% saving AND a voucher deal on Amazon, which would get you the whole setup for just over £200. SwitchBot Lock Ultra The Lock Ultra is smaller, faster, and quieter than its predecessor - but it still has compatibility issues SwitchBot is a company that's well known for innovation, and for solving complex issues with simple solutions. And so its smart locks are the simplest devices of their kind. You just clamp it to your door over the existing internal key and a motor operates the key. At least, that's the theory. The issue comes, for those of us in the UK at least, when you realise that UK standard locks can't be operated with keys in the inside of the lock and the outside of the lock at the same time. So while the SwitchBot smart lock will do a fine job of automatically locking and unlocking the door, you can't then use the key on the outside. Which is a bit of an issue. It's solved by changing the lock barrel to one with a two-way key access. And that's not easy on these shores, trust me. SwitchBot claims that the smart lock is compatible with 99% of existing doors, but that's only the case if you have the right barrel. It's fair to say, then, that my relationship with the Lock Ultra didn't get off to a great start. However, once I'd bought the correct barrel, and got it fitted, the relationship has really blossomed. Because it's a fabulous bit of kit. And, it's worth pointing out, some doors in the UK have different types of locks which won't need a double-ended barrel. It comes with wooden panels, which can help it match your door | SwitchBot Over the Lock Pro that it supersedes, it's better in just about every way. The locking mechanism works more quickly, and it's quieter. The whole unit is more compact, and it now has a built-in lithium battery with a small backup battery. It's sensible thinking and it's turned a good product into a really good product. To install it (once you've got the right barrel) you just put it all together, hook it over the key or knob, and stick it to your door. To be fair to SwitchBot there are lots of accessories and adaptors to ensure it fits well, and the instructions are excellent. Barring barrel compatibility issues, you really can't go wrong. And it's brilliantly easy to operate, too. SwitchBot's app monitors what it's doing, can lock and unlock it remotely, and there's now a one-touch button to save you the arduous task of having to manually twist the lock to lock it and unlock it. There's even a magnetic sensor included which will inform you if the door has been left open. Such is the SwitchBot smart lock's simplicity that you only have one module attached to the door, on the inside. From the outside, it's just your normal key socket. This means you can still use your conventional key if you like - handy if you have elderly relatives who don't get on with technology - or you can use SwitchBot's range of keypad devices. One of which I'll come to in a moment. The only other gripe I have with the Lock Ultra is that it occasionally wanders off its calibration point. It's very easy to fix in the app, but every other smart lock I've used has stayed straight and true. Overall though, it's impressive. Despite its compatibility shortcomings and a minor tweak being needed every few months, the battery lasts for ages, it's completely reliable, and a pleasure to use. SwitchBot Keypad Vision The Keypad Touch is a fabulous bit of tech - but there's one annoying flaw When SwitchBot launched the Lock Ultra, this new keypad design was launched alongside it, with much fanfare. And while the Lock Ultra makes your door smart, this turns it into something out of a sci-fi movie. But first, a look back. The last keypad launched by SwitchBot, the Keypad Touch, was a relatively simple affair, rather innocuous to look at, and it opened your door with either a combination of numbers, an NFC card or, quite cleverly, a fingerprint. The new Keypad Vision does all that too, but it looks a bit like a video doorbell now. And it also has a bold new feature - facial recognition. This is seriously impressive, and it works brilliantly, but I've actually switched it off on mine for reasons I'll go into shortly. Adding a keypad to your SwitchBot smart lock makes it into a truly smart system. The app makes it very easy to set up, and it will track who's using it and when. You can set up temporary access for people you only partially like, or permanent access for people you're more fond of. You can also lock it and unlock it remotely. For example, your cleaner can have her own code, as can the in-laws, or you can bestow on them an NFC card they can use to just flash their way in. Or they can each set up their fingerprints and you can control and monitor their access, or you could use the new facial recognition feature and the lock unlocks automatically as they stroll up to the door. The facial recognition is seriously clever, and it's never failed to recognise anyone I've programmed in, but it does have a bit of a flaw. An annoying quirk of the facial recognition system makes you wonder if you'd be better with older, cheaper Keypad Touch | SwitchBot Built in to the device is a voice system that guides you towards a more effective facial recognition with simple commands if you're standing in the wrong place, or if the sensor can't quite pick you up for any reason. "Please stand closer" is the sort of command the nice American lady issues. The trouble is, it's just not very clever. It can't tell when I'm trying to shoo away a double-glazing salesman, for instance. So I'll be standing with the door open, getting increasingly tired of being offered 0% finance, and the keypad is constantly telling me off for having my back to it. It's very annoying. It gets worse, too. If my postman has rung my bell and is stood at my door waiting for me to answer, because the keypad doesn't recognise him, it'll start asking him to "stand closer" or whatever. And it won't shut up about it. So I've turned off facial recognition and my life is now so much better. I've also not been able to get the NFC set up with any of my smartphones, and the geofencing isn't great. However, it's important to add that this is a brand new product, and SwitchBot is very good at correcting these relatively minor niggles with frequent updates. I haven't had one yet, but fingers crossed something is in the pipeline that will sort this out. Happily, the keypad sensor is flawless and works in an instant, and the code system is great if you're like me and your mother-in-law refuses to use biometrics because of the Illuminati, or something. But that does make me wonder why you'd opt for the new Keypad Vision when the predecessor, the Keypad Touch is less than half the price, smaller and neater, and doesn't look like a doorbell. Facial recognition is incredibly convenient, because it's completely hands free - useful if you're walking to your door with bags of shopping - but until SwitchBot sorts out the annoying American lady, I can't recommend it unfortunately. And it's a pity, because like the Lock Ultra, it's a seriously good bit of kit. Canva Get beach-ready with MySweetSmile's gentle teeth whitening range £ 20.99 Buy now Buy now Sunshine, selfies and holiday cocktails – summer is here, and so are all the moments you'll want to capture with a glowing smile. Whether you're jetting off for a beach escape or heading to a sunny staycation, MySweetSmile can help you look your best. This UK best-seller offers peroxide-free, gentle whitening that works its magic without harsh ingredients or faff. Their powder is perfect for whitening before take-off, while the handy on-the-go pen is great for keeping your smile photo-ready poolside. Shop the full MySweetSmile summer-ready range here.
North Wales Live
22-06-2025
- North Wales Live
Review: SwitchBot Lock Ultra Vision Combo drags your old door into the 21st Century
Not may of us live in a hi-tech house where everything is at your beck and call. Our windows, doors and locks are so very 20th Century. However, more and more companies are inventing ways to retro-fit the cutting-edge to the normal home. One of the leaders in this field is SwitchBot, and its latest offering is the Lock Ultra Vision Combo. The world's first retrofittable smart lock with 3D facial recognition, the Ultra combines the Lock Ultra, Keypad Vision, and Hub Mini to deliver fast, secure access. Suprisingly easy to install, the device will work for 99.9% of locks without drilling. That, for the DIY-phobic among us, is a godsend (I can tell you!!). Once fitted, you can then lock/unlock your door purely by looking at it! Switchbot is very proud of its 3D facial recognition system, which it says employs more than 30,000 infrared points to create a high-resolution, millimeter-level facial map for authentication. Recognition is instantaneous - within one second - and highly secure, with a false recognition rate of less than 0.0001%. Certainly, it worked flawlessly for me in all conditons, day or night. You actually are given 18 unlocking methods - auto unlock, NFC cards, semi-conductive fingerprint recognition, app control, and voice commands - so you're spoilt for choice on how you get in. The system is also quiet with several modes to choose from, indlcuing a night mode that auto locks at a specific time, creating an even quieter door entry experience when its dark. Battery life is very solid, you get a large rechargeable main battery that could last up to 12 months, a backup CR123A cell, and an electrolytic emergency unlocking system for the most ultra reliability even in emergencies when the main battery is out of power. You can also set up temporary passcodes for friends and family while traveling, grant entry remotely and monitor entry logs. It's a great device and works well. It coiuld be seen as a little pricey but theb advantage of not having to pick up a drill makes it worth it. Meanwhile, the SwitchBot Hub 3 serves as a powerful, Matter-enabled smart home control hub that works with more than 100,000 infrared (IR) devices, streaming TVs, and the SwitchBot ecosystem, meanwhile, it can also bring SwitchBot products to Matter. It can also send up to 30 programmable commands to activate automation scenes consisting of Matter-compatible products from other brands that are already integrated into Apple Home, providing users with a centralized, intuitive interface to manage their entire home. The device features the exclusive Dial Maste rotary controller, enabling ultra-precise control over volume, temperature, and more. In addition, it offers customizable scene buttons and real-time indoor/outdoor environmental data monitoring. Meanwhile, the Hub 3 is also capable of creating custom automation routines, supporting energy-saving behaviors and enhanced user comfort through the combination of built-in sensors and preset criteria. The SwitchBot Lock Ultra Vision Combo is available for £299.99 via Amazon. The SwitchBot Hub 3 on its own costs £129.99. What users say "I was a bit overwhelmed getting this out of the box due to all the pieces and cables – however a quick scan of the QR code told me everything I needed to know, with an easy-to-follow tutorial. I installed the lock in under 20 mins!" "In operation it's pretty much flawless and the face recognition works quickly and effectively. The only negative I can think of is that as I have a typical UK door with a multipoint locking mechanism, the handle has to be pushed up to engage the mechanism before it will lock. So I can't really use the auto lock function, or rely on being able to lock it remotely, unless I get in the habit of always pushing the handle up when coming in/out."
