Best facial recognition smart locks 2026

Hands-free unlocking is the future of smart locks. The best smart home technology removes friction, and opening your door as you walk up is frictionless—no passcodes to remember, and no need to have a free hand to wave, press, or press the lock. One way to achieve this happiness is through facial recognition. You’ve already unlocked your phone with your face; Why not your home?

Hands-free opening Using geofencing It’s been around for a while, but it can be slow, unreliable, and requires an app to run in the background on your phone. Newer innovations — facial recognition and Unlocking using Ultra Wide Band (UWB) radio. – Much better. In my testing, UWB is the best experience. All you need is your phone or a watch somewhere on you to recognize you as you approach, and it’s fast and reliable. But today, locks with UWB antennas are expensiveAnd they are few available.

This was while someone was reviewing, Sense Pro wonI discovered a real-life use case for facial unlock, a technology I had largely dismissed as an over-the-top solution to a mostly solved problem. My husband often leaves his phone at home when he’s working outside or in the garage, which means it can’t be unlocked hands-free. If you’re like him and don’t want the unlocking experience tied to a device, but want the speed and convenience of hands-free unlocking, face unlock might be for you.

Facial recognition on smart locks uses infrared sensors to create a 3D map of your face. Different companies use different methods — such as structured light, stereo infrared cameras, or time-of-flight sensing — but they are all designed to do the same thing. The 3D part is key because it captures depth, so holding up the photo generally won’t fool them.

I tested the four locks you can buy today with facial unlocking — the $300 Eufy FamiLock E40, the $350 Lockly Visage Zeno, the $199 Veno Solar Face from Lockin, and the $230 Lock Vision Pro from Switchbot. There too One on Kickstarter It will launch next month, and Switchbot has it A couple of differences.

Which facial recognition smart lock will I buy?

The best of the bunch Eufy Family Lock E40 Whoever denies. If I were going to walk this high tech to my door, I’d go all the way, and the FamiLock E40 is the complete package. Besides the excellent face unlock features, it also has a fingerprint reader, keypad and physical key, plus it works as a video doorbell. Stick this on your front door, and you’re good to go.

Of all four locks, the E40 was the quickest to unlock using my face — it did it in less than a second; I hardly had to hesitate before opening. It’s also the only one that works consistently when I’m wearing sunglasses. The rest did well with hats, but had difficulty wearing sunglasses. The E40 also includes a backup battery that keeps the keyboard active even if the main battery dies and the biometrics don’t work — a nice touch.

The lock part supports the Matter smart home standard, so it can work in the ecosystem of your choice, and viewing recorded footage from the built-in 2K video doorbell is free without a subscription. I also appreciate that Eufy added a touch of elegance to this lock; It looks more like a traditional lock than any of its competitors.

The downsides are that the Eufy is bulky and expensive, and its lithium-ion battery takes nine hours to fully charge, although you can still use the lock while charging. The main battery drains quickly; It decreased by 40 percent in a week of testing. Overall, although the Eufy E40 is expensive, it offers a lot of value, looks good, and performs well – as long as you’re willing to charge it regularly.

There’s also a great option for the Apple ecosystem

My other favorites are expensive too Loki Visage Zeno. This is the only lock that can do both Apple Home Key and facial recognition. The Home Key is a great backup when facial unlocking is too slow, as it’s very easy to tap your phone or watch to unlock it. If I’m in a hurry and my hands aren’t full, just tap my watch; Otherwise I let the face wipe do the work.

The Lockly was a little slower to unlock than the Eufy, taking about two seconds. She also struggled with sunglasses. It eventually opened, but it took longer. Lockly is also the oldest model I’ve tested; Launching in 2024. Although it supports Home Key, it will not work with Home Key UWB unlock; It’s a tap to unlock feature only.

I really like Lockly’s style. It is the sleekest and smallest, with the best build quality. Battery life was impressive, lasting about nine months (I was). Test this lock For a year and the rest for a little more than a week). It’s the only model to include a backup battery, which helps eliminate sticker shock.

However, it’s the most expensive lock I’ve tested, and while facial recognition was good, its keypad was very vague. Lockly’s PIN Genie system adjusts the number layout every time you use it, and talking to my dad about how to unlock it while I was trying to relax by the pool and he was struggling to get into my house to feed my dog ​​was an exercise in frustration. Fortunately, there is Now copy Allows you to switch to the standard keyboard layout.

The category continues to improve

The other two locks I tried have a lot of room for improvement, but they are also much less expensive. The main selling point of Lookin Fino Solar Face The solar panel is built-in to extend battery life, and it worked well during our limited testing period. But face unlock was slower and didn’t work with sunglasses. This lock also has the worst addition I’ve ever seen on a smart lock, which is an animated emoji that dances when it’s unlocked. I could happily live the rest of my life without an emoji on my door.

Switchbot Lock View Pro version It was the worst of the bunch and was extremely slow to open – I sometimes had to look at the reader for several seconds before it recognized me. Fingerprint unlock and palm strips were more reliable, but he didn’t like sunglasses at all and kept seeing people who weren’t there.

One night, I was sitting alone in the living room watching Widow’s Bay When the lock suddenly said: “Please stand near the door and try again.” I was understandably frightened when I thought someone was trying to get in. There was no one there, but he kept doing it. I eventually had to turn off the sounds in the app to stop it.

After trying these locks, I still think facial recognition is more technology than you need for your front door. Even if you don’t want to pay the UWB premium, keyboards and fingerprint readers work very well, are widely available, and are much less expensive. It’s a little slower, and requires you to use your hands.

There are other trade-offs to face unlock’s offerings in speed and cool factor. The locks it supports are not as expensive as current UWB locks, but they are still expensive. Although facial recognition locks are more available than UWB locks, there are not many of them. I also don’t think we’ll see more once UWB, which is a simpler technology, takes off. These locks also seem unapologetically high-tech and require you to have each member of your household stand in front of the lock to register their face (I’m still trying to encircle my family member’s face).

Finally, not everyone will feel comfortable storing their facial biometrics in a door lock, although for some it may seem safer than using your phone as a key – only Nicolas Cage has successfully stolen someone’s face. The good news here is that all of the locks I tested claim to store and process data locally rather than in the cloud, which improves privacy and performance.

Facial recognition seemed a little weird at first, but it works and has the cool sci-fi factor. After living with both technologies, I prefer UWB. “Step Unlock” feels more magical because the door is already unlocked when I reach for the handle instead of waiting a second or two for the lock to register that it’s me. But until more companies embrace UWB technology and prices come down, facial recognition is a good option for people who want hands-free unlocking today.

Photos by Jennifer Pattison Toohey/The Verge