Smart locks are gradually finding their way into people’s homes but the most recent versions of these wirelessly connected security devices may accelerate the rate of adoption by consumers.To get more news about door lock with wifi, you can visit securamsys.com official website.
A recent report from Allied Market Research predicts significant adoption on a global scale, especially among the working population for whom the safety of aged parents and children remains a major concern. With their enhanced safety features, “smart locks address these issues with highly sophisticated remote monitoring technologies,” the report says.
The company’s analysis for China forecasts a lucrative CAGR of 19.8 per cent growth in the smart lock sector between 2017 and 2023, with “significant demand generation from Hong Kong”.
Across Greater China, the growth in the smart lock market is being driven by domestic players including Yunding Network Technology (Beijing), Nuki Home Solutions, Guangdong Hutlon Technology, Guangdong Archie Hardware and Kaadas. They compete against global players eager to expand their market presence, including Honeywell International, Panasonic Corporation, Vivint, Assa Abloy and Samsung SDS.
Smart locks are convenient but, as with any digital technology, they can be hacked. Just how safe are they?
image
Stuart Madnick, MIT Sloan Professor of Information Technology, cautions about the hackability of any internet-connected device, including smart locks.
“I would apply the same advice that I give to any IoT (Internet of Things) device: fully understand the benefits you are expecting; realise that any IoT device is likely to be hackable, so understand the ‘worst case’ situation; and (then) determine which is more important to you,” he says.
However, he does see value in the added security smart locks provide, such as using a camera to see and record whoever is at the door, and the convenience of being able to remotely operate a door.German company AV-Test, an independent institute, conducts regular reviews of smart locks as part of its research into smart home technology. Its testing shows smart lock technology has advanced considerably recently.
Manufacturers of secure smart locks are responding to new threats by patching newly discovered vulnerabilities in firmware, apps and attached cloud services. Therefore, good and certified products are characterised by reasonable patch management. Only in this way is a smart home device kept up-to-date,” says Maik Morgenstern, the chief technology officer at AV-Test.
Morgenstern adds: “In our last (published) smart locks test (in 2017), we were amazed by how many manufacturers had already made meaningful security features available. On the other hand, in current tests we still find new ‘smart’ locks which are, for sure, not smart, but easy to open.”
The test team expect high levels of security when a product is launched and assesses the components of a product, as well as the security of the data channels it uses. “We demand a well-implemented encryption for data transport, for example between the device and the online service, as well as between the online service and the app,” Morgenstern said.
Not every device necessarily has to be networked with a cloud service, “but it should also be able to be operated in the in-house network,” he said. “We check which user data is captured by the device or app, whether it is necessary to collect this data to operate the device, and how the manufacturers handle their customers' data.”
The bottom line, according to Morgenstern, is to choose a security-certified product that is kept up-to-date by the manufacturer with critical updates.