The door can be opened without fingerprints and passwords. Why does the smart lock sing "empty city plan"?

【People's Livelihood Investigation Bureau】

　　Editor's note:

　　This is the People's Livelihood Investigation Bureau, which investigates changes in people's livelihood by seeing what no one else has seen.

Pay attention to what you want to pay attention to and what you don't pay attention to, investigate what you want to see and what you haven't seen.

　　Chinanews.com, February 9th (Zuo Yuqing, Zhongxin Finance and Economics) "The 3,000 yuan smart lock can be opened without a few fingerprint pulls" "Women's monitoring found that the door of their fingerprint lock automatically opened"...

　　As intelligence enters people's daily life, the smart lock that frees hands and can avoid the pain of key swiping on the screen of the mobile phone has been favored by many consumers.

However, when the smart lock fails, the after-sales maintenance problem also drives many consumers crazy.

　　Use it for a while, but after the sale, it will break your legs.

Are smart locks really safe and reliable?

Automatically open the door without fingerprints?

　　According to media reports, on February 2, a netizen claimed that the Philips combination locks purchased online could be opened directly without fingerprints or passwords. A man opened the door and broke into his home that night, and then claimed to leave through the wrong door.

In this regard, Philips customer service said that the product has passed the warranty, and repairs need to be paid for by themselves, and said: "If you are entered into the house, it is recommended to call the police."

After-sales chat records published by the parties on social platforms.

Screenshot from a social platform.

　　Many netizens said, "It's scary." "The higher the technology, the less reliable it is." "Smart locks are an IQ tax."

　　On February 7,

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The person involved also stated on the social platform that the cause of the failure was that the directional screw of the lock body was installed backwards.

　　Zhongxin Finance noticed that many netizens said that they had encountered such a situation before, and the brands of smart locks involved were different.

Among them, a new house renovated by a netizen has not yet moved in, and the anti-theft door with fingerprint lock suddenly opened automatically for some reason.

　　Why does the convenient and fast smart lock sing "empty city plan"?

　　Some people in the industry said that the failure of the fingerprint lock is likely to be due to a problem with the fit between the square shaft and the lock body during installation: "The square shaft is too short, and the door cannot be opened even if the verification is successful; if the square shaft is reversed, no verification is required. It can also open the door." In addition, the deformation of the door body and panel failure will also affect the smart lock verification.

"For example, although semiconductor fingerprint recognition is highly secure, it is not easy to maintain and has a relatively short service life."

Are smart locks safe and secure?

　　With the steady growth of China's smart home market, people's demand for smart security, especially smart door locks, is surging.

Although the penetration rate of smart locks in my country is still low compared with European and American countries, data from Aowei Cloud Network shows that in 2021, the sales volume of China's smart door lock online market will be 4.58 million sets, a year-on-year increase of 31.4%; the sales volume will be 7.1 billion yuan , an increase of 35.5% year-on-year.

　　According to industry statistics, since 2020, China has become the world's largest smart lock production and sales country. In 2022, more than 1,600 smart lock companies and more than 3,500 terminal brands will enter the market. The industry is highly competitive.

　　At the same time, the safety and reliability of smart locks have always attracted the attention of consumers.

　　As early as 2019, the China Consumers Association tested 29 samples of smart door locks in response to the rumor that "the small black box opens the smart door lock in seconds".

Among them, 48.3% of the sample passwords have risks in opening security, 50% of the samples have fingerprint identification opening security risks, and 85.7% of the samples have information identification card opening security risks.

　　In the same year, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Consumers Association tested 38 samples of 28 brands, and the results showed that nearly 80% of the tested samples were unreliable.

According to the test results, most of the samples have poor reliability, falsely promote the function of living fingerprints, IC card keys can be cracked and copied, and can be unlocked with fake fingerprints.

　　In 2022, the State Administration for Market Regulation issued a random inspection report on the quality of electronic door locks.

The results showed that among the 123 batches of products inspected, 42 batches of products were found to be unqualified, and the unqualified rate was 34.1%.

A certain visual smart lock.

Photo by Zuo Yuqing

　　An industry insider told Zhongxin Finance and Economics that compared with the evaluation of Consumers Association in 2019, most of the problematic smart locks on the market are low-priced or three-no-brand products. With the development of smart lock-related technologies, regular brands The quality can basically be guaranteed.

"Although there are many problems in the early smart locks, technically speaking, it is relatively simple to modify, and most manufacturers have perfected them."

　　During the visit, Zhongxin Finance found that most of the smart locks of regular brands on the market have adopted more secure verification methods such as CPU cards, semiconductor fingerprints, and virtual passwords, but some brands still use IC cards and optical locks that are easily cracked. fingerprint.

"The main reason is that the cost of IC cards and optical fingerprints is lower, and the service life of optical fingerprints is longer." The industry source said.

　　A salesperson told Zhongxin Finance and Economics that as an electronic product, smart locks may have various problems when they are used, just like mobile phones, and they are constantly being updated.

"Old versions of locks are prone to various problems, it is best to buy the latest style."

After-sales pain points are difficult to guarantee a "sense of security"

　　The possible faults of smart locks also make after-sales maintenance a pain point.

　　Zhongxin Finance noticed that on a complaint platform, there were more than 2,500 complaints about smart locks. Except for quality problems, most of the complaints were concentrated in after-sales maintenance.

Many netizens said on social platforms that the after-sales service of the smart locks they bought was poor and the maintenance masters were unprofessional.

　　For example, some netizens said: "A girl living alone opened the door lock by herself in the middle of the night in the first week, but the customer service replied that I would contact you within 48 hours." "The official installer installed it for more than an hour, but the door was broken." "The door lock is faulty and cannot be opened. While waiting for repairs, I have been thinking about what to do if it catches fire." And so on.

Most of the door locks involved are well-known formal smart lock brands.

A smart lock sales store in a home furnishing market.

Photo by Zuo Yuqing

　　During the interview, an owner of a smart lock store told Zhongxin Finance and Economics that for consumers, the most important thing to consider when choosing a smart lock is after-sales service.

"Many smart lock brands have regional divisions. After-sales service outside the region is very troublesome. A better choice is to go to a well-known local smart lock physical store to buy, so that the after-sales service is guaranteed."

　　Another smart lock salesperson told Zhongxin Finance and Economics that there are differences in the after-sales of locks purchased through different channels.

"Online platforms require customer service transfer, which may be time-consuming, especially the after-sales of group buying channels is difficult to guarantee; offline physical stores can be repaired in a short period of time due to the relatively fast connection with local dealers." (End)