Last week, Apple announced that it will be bringing hands-free unlocking to Apple Home for Smart Locks when iOS 18 is released this fall. The new feature will leverage the U1 Ultra-Wideband (UWB) chip found in many iPhones and Apple Watches to allow Smart Locks to open automatically when you approach your front door – no tap required.
However, hands-free unlocking won't be coming to existing Home Key smart locks because your current locks don't have the hardware to support it. You'll need to buy a new lock to use this exciting new feature, and we won't see UWB-enabled smart locks until the end of 2024 at the earliest.
Apple's hands-free unlocking feature won't be available on existing Home Key smart locks
This new feature is part of Home Key, a feature of the Apple Home smart home platform that lets you unlock compatible locks by simply tapping your iPhone or Apple Watch to the lock. With Hands-Free Unlock, you can just tap your Apple Watch to the lock instead of taking out your phone to open it. Instead, if you're wearing your Apple Watch or your phone is in your pocket and you've unlocked it within the last 24 hours, your door will unlock when you approach from outside, six feet away.
Smart locks can work with both or just one of the Home Key unlock options, but as mentioned above, it may be a while before we see locks that support the new feature.
Following Apple's announcement, I spoke with several smart lock manufacturers, all of whom confirmed that their existing locks do not support UWB. This includes Aqara, U-tec, Yale, August, Level, Lockly, Schlage, and SwitchBot.
Almost universally, the manufacturers I spoke with said they were exploring the possibility of incorporating the technology, but only U-tech and Schlage confirmed they have UWB locks in the works. U-tech vice president Clark Ruan said the next generation of its Ultraloq smart lock will support UWB and is due to be available in the fourth quarter of this year. David Perozzi, general manager of Allegion Home (Schlage's parent company), said Schlage is “developing new products that will work with Apple's latest hands-free Home Key unlocking feature,” with details to be announced later this year.
UWB-enabled smart locks allow your phone or watch to communicate directly with the lock.
Hands-free auto-unlocking isn't a new concept, and versions of the feature have been available for years. August first pioneered the ability to unlock your door as you approach it back in 2013, and several smart locks now come with the feature.
Apple Home also lets you set up automations to automatically unlock your door using geofencing, but it asks for permission to run the automation on your phone or watch every time, so it's not hands-free and, frankly, a bit of a pain. In my experience, neither solution is particularly reliable, either August's auto-unlock tech or Apple's geofencing.
What's new about Apple's UWB unlock implementation is the technology: instead of using a combination of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), Wi-Fi, GPS, and a third-party app like most other solutions, this feature uses UWB and BLE.
This is the same technology implemented in digital car keys, such as BMW's Digital Key Plus, which uses UWB to detect when you approach your car and automatically unlock it. With a UWB-enabled smart lock, your phone or watch can communicate directly with it, so you don't have to go through multiple steps to verify your location before unlocking the door. In theory, this should provide a more reliable, secure, and faster auto-unlock experience.
Express Mode in the Home app enables hands-free unlocking, eliminating the need to use Face ID or Touch ID to unlock your door. Image: Apple
UWB is a short-range wireless communication protocol that operates at extremely high frequencies, making it ideal for these use cases as it can provide secure, accurate, real-time location data without requiring line of sight.
Sujata Neidig, marketing director at NXP, which makes UWB chips, says the technology can measure distance and angle accurately without line of sight, meaning it's accurate enough to tell if you're inside your home approaching the door so it unlocks, or if you're outside and approaching the door so it unlocks, or if you're outside and walking away from the door so it locks when you leave.
Regarding the car-lock technology NXP is working on, Neidig said the auto-unlock feature uses BLE for the initial connection between the car and the phone, then switches to UWB to determine which side to unlock first for precision unlocking. Neidig said a similar implementation could be used for smart home door locks. The BLE radio is needed, Neidig said, because UWB consumes more power. By first establishing a connection using BLE, the UWB radio can be turned off for longer periods of time, reducing power consumption.
While UWB's high power usage isn't good news for smart locks, which already struggle with battery life, the use cases for UWB in the smart home are exciting, and we'd love to see Apple make more use of the U1 chip, which is also found in the HomePod Mini and second-generation HomePod.
In 2021, Apple added music handoff from iPhone to HomePod, a feature that uses the U1 chip in both devices. Image: Apple
Prior to this new Home Auto Unlock feature, Apple had been using UWB for things like passing music, finding AirTags, unlocking cars, etc. But the potential for advanced smart home automation is there. With such precise location data, a HomePod could turn on your bedroom lights when you're walking from the living room to the bedroom, and turn on your living room lights when you're walking in the opposite direction. That would be super cool.
Hands-free unlocking for smart home locks will likely extend beyond Apple Home: Aliro, a universal standard for smart locks that Apple is helping to develop, plans to include BLE and NFC (used for Apple's tap-to-unlock Home Key technology) in its initial spec, in addition to UWB.
Hands-free unlocking may be coming to more smart home platforms
Aliro is still in its very early stages, but considering most high-end Android smartphones also support UWB, we may see this hands-free unlock feature make its way to more smart home platforms once the smart lock industry eventually adopts it. Unlike Apple's tap-to-unlock Home Key feature, hands-free unlocking with UWB doesn't require specific HomeKit certification. If your lock is Matter certified and has the necessary hardware, it will work with Apple Home hands-free unlock.
So while it looks like we'll have to wait a while and invest in new hardware to get this better, faster auto-unlock feature, there's a silver lining: the highly fragmented smart home industry is starting to coalesce around an exciting new technology that has the potential to make our homes a lot smarter.
Update June 21: Added response from Schlage.