Installation and Integration of a SwitchBot Lock Pro

Smart locks are a very useful addition to a smart home. They add to both the convenience and safety of home ownership. And, if the installation doesn’t damage the door or door frame where they are installed, they can be just as useful for people who rent a house or apartment. They are also very useful for people who offer their properties as short-term rentals. For example:

• You don’t have to worry about being locked out because you lost / forgot your key
• You can provide a trusted neighbor with their own lock code so they can enter your house in case of emergency
• Your children can have their own lock codes and you can receive notifications when they get home from school
• You can supply a contractor with a one-time use code that allows them entry into the house to fix something while you are at work
• A unique key code can be provided to a renter that automatically expires when their rental period is over
• You can supply a cleaning service with their own code that is only active on specific days of the week when they are scheduled to arrive
• You can receive notifications when a contractor, neighbor, or cleaning service enters your home
• When integrated with an overall smart home, smart locks can automatically be unlocked in the event of a fire, or other emergency, to make it easier for family members to exit the home and for first responders to gain entry
• For added security, the smart lock can automatically relock the door after it has been closed

While not every smart lock will include all these features, it is a good list to help evaluate a smart lock that you are considering purchasing.

SwitchBot has been in business since 2016 with a focus on products that make the existing items in your home smart. I wrote about the original SwitchBot Lock back in 2022 in my article, “Smart Home Additions That Won’t Fill a Landfill with Old Tech.”

The SwitchBot Lock Pro has a number of new features and enhancements when compared to SwitchBot’s original smart lock:

• Compatibility with a wide range of single cylinder deadbolt locks
• Installation doesn’t damage the door or existing lock in any way including drilling into the door to mount it
• It offers a wide range of methods for unlocking including fingerprint scanning, fingerprints that expire after a period of time, passcodes, one-time passcodes, temporary passcodes that expire after a period of time, passcode sharing with friends and family, virtual passcodes that are masked in the SwitchBot app so someone looking over your shoulder can’t steel them, remote unlocking using the SwitchBot app on a smart phone or tablet, voice commands with a smart speaker, tap on an Apple Watch, NFC tags and cards, iOS Widgets, support for the SwitchBot Remote (Sold Separately), and you can still use your lock’s original key to gain entry to your home.   Fingerprint scanning requires a SwitchBot Keypad Touch (sold separately or available as a bundle with the Lock Pro). 
• The ability to unlock the door with a key code.  Key code entry requires either a SwitchBot Keypad (sold separately) or SwitchBot Keypad Touch (sold separately or available as a bundle with the Lock Pro). 
• Support for up to 100 fingerprints
• Rapid 0.3 second recognition time for fingerprints with an accuracy of 98%
• Simple unlocking of the lock from inside the home with just a tap of the Quick Key button on the back of the lock
• Magnetic battery cover to make changing batteries quick and easy
• Long battery life – Four AA batteries can provide up to 9 months of battery life.  The optional Dual Power Pack includes rechargeable Lithium-Ion batteries that fuel up to 12 months of unlocking.  An internal relay automatically switches between the 2 battery solutions so when one runs out of power it seamlessly switches to the other.
• Passive power supply allows the homeowner to unlock the door to gain access to their home even if the regular batteries are low on power
• Matter Protocol support for integration with other smart home ecosystems when the lock is paired with a Matter enabled SwitchBot Hub Mini
• Auto Lock automatically locks the lock a user specified period of time after it has been unlocked
• Real-time Notifications – Notifications include locked/unlocked status of the lock, opened/closed status of the door, low battery, and more including reminders if lock is left unlocked or the door is left open

Hands on with the SwitchBot Lock Pro

SwitchBot provided me with a SwitchBot Lock Pro, Keypad Touch, and Hub Mini to evaluate for this article. Installation of the SwitchBot Lock Pro is very easy and doesn’t damage a door. To install the SwitchBot Lock Pro:

1. The exterior portion of the door’s deadbolt lock is taped in place using the included tape
2. The screws that attach the interior portion of the door’s deadbolt lock are removed as well as the interior portion of the lock
3. The Lock Pro’s mounting plate is installed using the included screws to attach it to the existing deadbolt lock
4. The appropriate adapter is installed by simply sliding it onto the deadbolt lock mechanism
5. The SwitchBot Lock Pro is installed onto the mounting plate with four hex screws
6. A small magnet is installed onto the door frame opposite the Lock Pro with a 3M self-adhesive pad
7. Using the SwitchBot app you go through the process of calibrating the lock and creating the passcodes you need for your family.

If you are a renter, you can easily remove the SwitchBot Lock Pro from your door and reinstall the original inside portion of the deadbolt lock that was removed during the installation of the Lock Pro. You just may need a little touch-up of the paint where the magnet was installed on the doorframe because the 3M adhesive pad used to adhere it offers a permanent bond.

The original SwitchBot lock was attached to a door using these same adhesive pads. In use, I found that an inadvertent sharp blow to the side of the lock could dislodge it from the door because the grip of the paint to the door would fail. I believe that the mounting solution that SwitchBot has developed for the Lock Pro is a far superior design. 

I had two minor issues when attaching the SwitchBot Lock Pro to my door. First, the screws supplied by SwitchBot were a little too long. To work around this, I simply used the screws supplied with my original lock to attach the supplied backing plate to the front portion of my original lock. Second, the screws that attach the SwitchBot Lock Pro to the mounting plate are very small, making them challenging to work with. Fortunately, SwitchBot provides quite a few extras of these screws as it is very easy to drop one and lose it. If SwitchBot had chosen a larger screw, then it would have made that portion of the installation quite a bit easier. However, these are very minor critiques.

With the lock installed, it was easy to add it to the SwitchBot app. Then the app automatically updates the lock’s firmware and walks you through the process of calibrating it so it understands the fully open/closed positions of the deadbolt and how to sense whether the door is open or closed.

I found that “Quick-Key” is a very nice feature of the SwitchBot Lock Pro. The knob on the back of the Lock Pro can be twisted to lock/unlock the door. The flat surface of this knob can be enabled as an even faster way to operate the lock. When Quick-Key is enabled, pressing the knob like a button will instantly toggle the state of the lock. 

The SwitchBot Keypad and Keypad Touch are very worthwhile options that can be used with the Lock Pro. Either keypad can be paired with the Lock Pro, mounted outside the door using either screws or a 3M double stick pad, and used to unlock the door. The Keypad Touch includes both a keypad and a fingerprint scanner. Some fingerprint scanners can be problematic, but I found that the SwitchBot Keypad Touch worked very well. It quickly and accurately recognized different fingerprints. 

Integration

There are two paths to integration of the SwitchBot Lock Pro with a third-party smart home ecosystem. First, is the traditional SwitchBot API. This is a cloud-based API, but it functions very well with the exception that you need to poll for feedback.

The second path to integration is leveraging the Matter protocol. The SwitchBot Lock Pro can be integrated with Matter by defining it as a sub-device to a Matter-compatible SwitchBot Hub Mini using the SwitchBot app. Then the lock is available as a Matter-compatible lock on any Matter platform with which you have paired the SwitchBot Hub Mini. 

I tested both of these integration paths, and they both performed well.

The SwitchBot Lock Pro is a well-designed product that allows a homeowner to convert their existing deadbolt lock into a smart lock. It will work for both people that own their own home or those that are renting as it won’t damage your door and can be removed if you move. 

If you don’t want to unlock your Lock Pro with your smart phone, a SwitchBot Keypad or Keypad Touch is a good addition. The Keypad Touch can be purchased as a bundle with the Lock Pro. The Keypad Touch includes a fingerprint scanner that I found to be both fast and accurate at recognizing fingerprints.