I haven’t posted in a while. At the end of last year I changed my job and joined Amazon in their Driver Experience team. We also moved to Austin. After we moved to Austin, we got an apartment with a smart lock. Our old apartment in Columbus had a more traditional mechanical lock. This smart lock came with a companion app on the phone. It uses bluetooth (and potentially WiFi) to transmit the information. Apart from using the phone, I can set up a secure PIN and use the touchpad to lock and unlock the door. Other than the basic lock/unlock functionality, it comes with more bells and whistles where I can grant access to a guest, for a specific duration. Even though it has been working well for a couple of months now, I am not very comfortable with something using Wi-Fi, bluetooth and remote servers in the cloud protecting my family and property. Underlying software will have bugs. There are some servers needing to be patched and kept up to date, APIs breaking contracts, someone hacking into the system. Losing power/battery or any technical glitch on the hardware itself can lock us outside or inside of the apartment or worse the door doesn’t lock. The minor convenience of not having to carry with an extra key is not worth it. Unfortunately there is no option of using a more traditional lock. For common areas like swimming pool or play area in the apartment complex, this type of lock probably makes sense. But using it for an actual apartment makes little sense.