@@sloxman8937 I guess that's just a US problem. At least here in most European countries most newer doors (bought in the last 20 years or so) you won't be able to easily kick in. No matter what lock is used.
@@sloxman8937 If you don't have bars on your windows for insurance reasons, crime in your area is so low that it's hardly worth talking about. In places where there are bars on the windows, evidence that picking, raking and bumping attacks are common are as easy to spot as a stroll through the neighborhood -- you can tell whose been broken into in such a fashion by glancing at what sort of lock they have installed.
@@TesserId If he does, hopefully he'll come up with a way to make it interesting - such as using BNE methods, with the typical dry humour included, to show the difficulty level. I'd prefer to see it done in more than one way; but, that could get expensive.
@@thedarksage328 I suspect 300 bucks that can be written off as a business expense is pretty inconsequential to a lawyer and successful RU-vidr. Besides, unless the plan is to return it, the money has already been spent. If it can be easily broken, you wouldn't want to use it anyway, and then it doesn't matter what you paid for it.
The lock is made by a company called Level, and they have responded to LPL trying to tout that you can lock and unlock your door remotely and they skirted the whole issue that you can easily break in. They even added that you can see if door is unlocked when you're away, but that only means that somebody is already in your house when you're not home. I think the C-Suite at Level would make good politicians, dancing around the true problem with their product.
I also read their response it does not make sense. According to their statement, 38% of breaks in are unforced; therefore, it is more important to make sure you can lock your door remotely. Apparently, 38% is more significant in their world than 62%; we are dealing with mastermind engineers here.
With our lock you'll know hours before getting home you were robbed. The mitigation of mental anguish is priceless. Also next months new packaging "as tested and approved by the lock picking lawyer". After all LPL did say he loved the design.
LPL gave a solution for those who want a lock that works with iphones (without a delay since these don't require internet communication to validate known phones like other wifi locks). Change the cylinder. So people just need to recommend a better cylinder that fits. Those that want better security and use iphones can swap the cylinder. I for one give apple credit for allowing customizations of the physical lock, that is usually not their style. I suspect it is a "feature" that will be prevented in future revisions of the product. If you can swap the cylinder, then they won't be able to sell "higher-end" ones with better cylinders that have extremely high markups for profit.
To be fair, it is true. There are lots of misconception about house breaking : the first one is when it happen. 55% take place in the afternoon, and only 20% at night. More than 50% are done without breaking anything : thieves first try to open all doors then all windows (38% of home intrusion happen through windows both with and without breaking). And over 95% use brute force to open a door. Overall, lock picking should be the least of your worries.
@@LeSarthois Great explanation on how to sell gum as a hasp for $300. The next step is how to sell combustible uniforms to firefighters, since most of them suffocate rather than burn.
@@FrankyRain I'm not saying they are right in doing that, just that technically (and Lockpicking Lawyer pointed that out himself in his videos) that lockpicking is indeed the least of your worries when trying to secure your home.
so Level has responded to this video, their response is basically "We didn't make it secure because only 4% of B&Es involve lockpicking, it's a convenience device not a security device"
I could sort of accept that point of view if the attacker needed to know skills. The skills needed to open this lock can be learned in minutes. And it might burn your home down if you get a more physical attack (or just slam the door with the bolt out). It's an interesting concept, though.
You know, it's one of those situation where if they are serious about the convenience aspect VS picking attacks, then they should at least 1- advertise it as such, and 2- sell it at a much lower price point, like maybe 10$... I would love to see what kind of hack resistance the programing has. That in itself could be a backdoor to you entire home network.
@@louisjutras1 maybe someday there is a "Lock Hacking Lawyer". 😄 LPL could partner with some Whitehackers and make it a challenge, who opens it first, the picker or the hacker 😄
Level's response is just the icing on the cake. The amount of publicizing that this lock has received now is just cementing its flaws, as if a thief didn't know how to enter a house with this lock before, now they do.
Just saw a report on Techradar from Level respondingbto this video, saying they aren't worried about lock picking because very few house break-ins are by picking. That is an incredible response.
And few Chinese PSU's catch fire but that doesn't mean you should buy a product with cheap components. It might end up costing you more eventually. To be quite honest though. They're not concerned that you'll get robbed, they've already done it.
But why kick in a door when there are likely many other weak points on your average home? If you are a SWAT team and you need speed to get a team of officers into an area quickly (so that the suspect doesn't destroy evidence or whatever) then yeah ... you need to bust a deadbolt. But if you're a burglar in the middle of the night, a hammer to a 1/16" panel of glass is going to be way easier and still get you inside.
@@coopercummings8370 you have a point but when you can open the physical lock using only items you trash picked from the can in front of an auto parts store, that’s tough to compete with
Such a shame too. For $300+ dollars, you could buy an Abloy or a Medeco lock that nobody would be picking anytime soon. But should we expect more from Apple? I say no. They've always sold nice shiny looking things at 5 to 10 times the price it should be. I'm just here reading the comments trying to find some apple fanboy defending the company but I've yet to find one. This makes me optimistic that Apple's marketing department is either becoming ineffective or people are finally starting to wise-up.
@@markjune3027 it's apple homekit compatible not from apple themselves, if like saying your chinese 30 dollar lights are google assistant compatible so they're made by google. Still, being sold on Apple's website it's disappointing, but no hate to Apple the lock *does* do what it needs to do ie. work perfectly with homekit
Lpl is a beast no one i mean NO ONE's lock or anyblicking invention is safe from him. . I appreciate his work and his humble attitude most important his honesty. . .keep it going lots of love from MAURITIUS 🇲🇺
@@anthonyobryan3485 What I was ACTUALLY referring to was LPL praising the lock's design hiding the electronic components from outsider view, the battery placement, the quality of the thumbturn, and the easily-replacable cylinder. To be honest, I do not know enough about lock mechanism terminology to identify what part of LPL's commentary can be translated as "looks really good".
Did I hear correctly, that it is sold in Apple Stores? Wow. Who could of expected Apple to sell overpriced *censored* products? Yes, I called Apple products *censored*, because you can't even fix them outside of EU sooner, than later (ouside of EU, because EU is hammering down law, that mandates all consumer electronics, phones etc. to be fixable with access to spare parts for if I recall correctly up to 10 ish years. Don't quote me on that, though).
@@1989SupraGuyFIN they are already legislating that that phones have to have a replaceable battery and use USB-C connector. Seems a lot of rechargeable stuff is going the same way, my rechargeable computer mouse has a replaceable USB-C lead too.
It's in line with the Apple policy of producing garbage at a super low cost, then sell it overpriced with a stupid tax. 1k+ phone that costs 3hundos, same as this. Going by how it looks, operates, i'm betting this is a cheapo china special, upscaled with a few better quality features. I wouldn't use this to secure anything but a toilet door, and i wouldn't buy this for more than 100$
My favorite hardware store is not too far from LP's P.O. box, and it only has Master Lock pad locks. I fantasize about the day I overhear LPL's voice in that store and find myself wanting to warn the store clerks not to let him near the lock isle, as they would surly all jump off their pegs and run away.
@@1989SupraGuyFIN Heh, should have thought about that. I definitely favor right to repair. So, when LPL mentioned the possibility of replacing the core, I should have immediately recognized that the warranty might be voided if somebody did.
As someone who had to break into his own house, thank you for bringing up Kick Resistance. It is shockingly easy to break most home locks that way, or at least get past the lock by breaking the door frame.
That really depends on where you live. In the Netherlands our front doors generally have steel doorframes. You very likely will not be kicking these down.
@@paulelderson934 I almost sure it's true for all over Europe. Only americans can purchase $100/$200/$329,99 locks and install it into cardboard door. Oh, and don't forget 2 meters tall windows beside that door.
I used to break into places legally for a living, my front door has a "kick strip" protecting the lock and the door frame is re-enforced with studs resin fixed into the brickwork, lock is a Chubb Ava which is a bit dated now an pickable but only with specialist tools and knowledge which is good enough for me.
When breaking and entering there's a few things to consider. Is the window open, is there a spare key hidden around, is there a back door that's easier to get through, would anyone notice if you threw a brick in the back window. Is there a garage door that's easier to get in. The lock and doorframe can be made of the most advanced exotic materials and have special designs to insure pick resistance, that won't stop someone who wants in.
Level sells just the Bolt version (it's just the insides there), and you can put your own lock hardware on the outside of the door. Only downside it the Bolt doesn't have Apple Key capability. But it does have Homekit support as well as a wireless keypad. Both of those combined give me an awesome setup!
@@Martink9191 This is so true. Apple phones suck badly and don't even get me started on their walled garden that limits what you can do with the device.
ill bet the electronic hardware is just as bad, and god only knows how faulty the programing is. it just looks really nice when it's in the packaging and that's what Apple is all about.
@@cris_j Meh, still depends on application. If it’s a door where you need to allow a high amount of temporary access, it’s hard to beat the convenience of an electronic lock that allows time limits and remote reprogramming. As for kicking it in, that depends entirely on the construction of the door, not the lock
For more than 10 years I've played around with locks trying to pick them with little to no success until I started watching you and Bosnenbill's videos. now I'm getting better at it but still a novice. I was successful using a city rake to open an SFIC Best Lock Lock style deadbolt in less than three seconds, I was blown away..thanks LPL. Much respect from a fellow Marylander.
Rake is super powerful tool, I was surprised how easily many office locks can be unlocked with wave rake. And sometimes faster and easier than with the real key!
Thank you for this video. I’d love to see you test more of these locks, although I expect it’ll be about the same. I’m VERY interested in the results of the kick testing. Level is already trying to spin these results, lol
Capitalism, chapter 1: you don't have to sell things you have at the cost price. You try to milk your customers as much you can, optimising the profit.
Level, the company that makes this lock, just replied to a news outlet that the security of the lock isn't really that important because people use other ways to get into the house. What a joke.
I'd love to see how strong the hollow bolt is, and also a teardown of the cylinder to see the pins. It would also be interesting to discover what sensors it has (if any) and if they can be tricked somehow.
Indeed; compare to the bold on a real lock that costs hundreds, like the high-end Multilock. Contrast on the left: bolt resists hacksaws in multiple ways and annoys the attacker; to the right: explodes after just starting the saw through with a common hacksaw blade.
@@JohnDlugosz considering i can snap batteries in half with my bare hands (and i'm about as muscly as she-hulk before the cgi) i can't see anyone much past ten years old needing to do more than kick it but yeah, a hacksaw is gonna make a mess of that in seconds!
I don't like Masterlock junk any more than he does but showing how terrible high priced products are so poorly designed and made is a far better use of his time, talent and fame and I really applaud this use of his channel. The other thing he does is expose Amazon picks as cheap and shoddy and too few people stand up to them. Please keep up the good work.
Interesting concept, looks like a nice finish. Glad to know about the lock cylinder details, so I don't waste money on it. Edit: Looking forward to your test of the bolt with the battery inside.
@@purelogarithm Maybe, but if they sell it on the Apple store, it's a tackit endorsement. And for almost 400 bucks, that's a hell of an endorsement for something that offers basically no security. Unless that deadbolt is enforced by unobtanium, it being hollowed out is a ludicrous design flaw. Add to that if the battery gets ruptured, you're looking at a housefire.
@@mattstanford9673 I disagree. They sell lots of products. I don’t consider just being a reseller much of endorsement if it’s a technology company when you look at a lock. Now of it was a company that sold quality locks I would.
@@purelogarithm I don't think it's a super relevant endorsement in terms of product specialties, but it's still an endorsement. Apple has to specifically decide to put that product on their store, it's not the same as Amazon putting their 748th deadbolt in their database.
Somehow I missed this video when it was first posted - glad I found it while researching this lock. I also didn't know about the "battery in the bolt" aspect - that seems… Less than optimal. But our front door is a "french door" style dual doors that just have little bolts that go up and down on the second door, so we're already not exactly highly kick resistant. I might get one and just replace the cylinder with a higher security one.
Wow I was just looking for a video on this lock from you about 2 hours ago. One thing to note, you can buy just the electronics/ smart deadbolt portion from Amazon for $173 and use your existing locks, or purchase a more secure lock. That, of course, doesn’t change the hollow dead bolt weakness that you pointed out, which I’m glad I learned about here in your video.
He already uploaded a video were it was just a fluke. Can't remember which video, but it was a "challenge lock" or something along those lines. If I remember correctly he only got it open ones.
I'd love to see, someday, LPL crafting his own pick-proof lock! 😍 It would be epic! He knows every vulnerability of locks, so he can be smart enough to help creating a lock that would be quite difficult to pick. We all know the perfect lock is impossible to create...
The one issue with pick-proof locks, is that if you lock yourself out, it gets increasingly difficult and expensive to have someone pick it for you - or replace if unable to pick it. And on average, locking yourself out by mistake is far more common than being robbed
I'd be really interested to see your approved or recommended locks for each different category. Like what smart door lock would you actually use, what padlock for a shed would you use, what Euro-cylinder would you use for your own front door etc etc
The closest you’ll find to a recommendation would be a lock that doesn’t have trivial bypasses and also takes him a little while to pick. Video length can be an indicator, but not always. There’s also the phrase “probably good enough for the street” that you can listen for.
The wave rake!!! And the bump!!! Those are like 75 year old known vulnerabilities! This shows again that technology companies and lock companies aren't the same thing--even there there are terrible lock companies. Looking at you ML
Even though LPL makes a living doing these videos the truth is that vanishing few home burglaries involve lock picking. It might be something like 1/2 of 1% of home entry is via lock picking and in those cases it's probably a sophisticated thief. So for the vast majority of cases making the lock easily picked saves the homeowner a lot of time and money when they lock themselves out and need a locksmith to come open the door. If the lock can be wave raked it's going to be a lot cheaper than if the locksmith has to burn through 3 drill bits and replace the whole lock.
The customers are Apple people - they're not interested in the details, just how shiny it is and it says "Apple" on the box, or works with their iphone (yes, I realize apple didn't make this, but it's selling into the same customers / same ecosystem)
@@gorak9000 i disagree, but everyone is entitled to their opinions. This specific lock has some nice features but two big security concerns both of which were identified. Most other “smart” locks available are even worse for security (other than August smart lock which uses your existing deadbolt).
@@1slyboy To which they then attempted to defend their product and in the meantime dodge the actual concern by praising the less important part of the "lock" which is supposed to be (somewhat) lock-picking resistant. I laughed when I read it.
As soon as I heard this was something from the Apple store I had expectations, and this exactly met them. High tech, slimline, very aesthetic and almost completely useless at it's supposed basic function.
It also has one of the most distinguishing feature, it is above and beyond the reasonable price. Though I am not sure if this is also repair "ex girfriendly" like other Apple products, i.e, it is better get a new one than to fix the broken one.
Very true. I'd rather have my house or flat robbed out of everything inside than burned. Belongings can be relatively easy bought again if you have money from insurance, but getting a new place to live is a totally different story.
This battery isn't a fire hazard. No lithium that burns in contact with water, and it has a puny amount of energy. The big issue is how weak the hollow bolt is.
@@random_n looks like a standard Duracell to me. Just one of their smaller ones. (I stand corrected it does say lithium ion the battery.) Missed it the first time.
Level also sells just the internal bolt and so you can provide your own lock, so technically you could add the Bowley lock to it. Curious how Level’s bolt compares to Bowley’s level 3 bolt
Thanks for doing this review. I'd heard about this lock and checked out the "reviews" and none of them seemed to care about whether the lock provide good security. It was all about how well it interfaced to the apple world. As to the exorbitant price, apple fanboys would feel that they were being cheated if they didn't overpay for the product.
LPL, I love your videos. At some point, I’d love it if you could cover 2 topics: 1 - for those of us that will never be expert pickers, what tools and techniques would you recommend purchasing / practicing (e.g. bumping, raking, combing, etc) and what portion of locks do you think that covers? 2 - what locks would you recommend for your average home buyer looking for decent security while understanding our homes aren’t fortresses and at some point, people simply would try a different form of entry (eg window).
I’d like to see a tear down of the lock with change out of pins and perhaps entire core. This along with kick resistance would allow you to see if the unit is convertible into something useful / useable.
I'd love to see a kick test on that thing. That hollow bolt looks flimsy as heck. Not only that, but it has a battery inside the bolt, which will get mangled along with the bolt.... I'd be interested to see what becomes of that, especially if it's a fully charged lithium battery.
Just discovered you. Wow, you make this look so easy and quick. Q - I've just bought the Bolt version of this brand (just the silver inner piece) so I can select my own knobs. Now what I would like is what my current 'dumb' lock (Lockwood 001) can do - It has the usual knob inside which can open the door, BUT if you turn the key inside 360 degrees the inside knob can't be turned - so the door can't be opened from inside. I like that as it means when I go away from home a burglar can't open the door (once they get in somewhere else) and cart off all my goodies with ease (rather than squeeze back out the window they got in). The Lockwood 001 has an angled sprung bolt (sorry I don't know the correct term) so I can turn the key inside, then step out and pull the door shut. The Level Bolt is a bolt so the process would have to happen after closing the door. Can you think of a way what I desire can be done?
@@bvd7517 You could have said "Apple sells a product…", been accurate, and told the same hackneyed joke. What's worse? The "fanboy" (who's writing this on an Android smartphone), or the knee-jerk reactionary parroting a lame joke incorrectly?
My understanding is that the bolt is certified at the highest standard for home locks, so the battery in it shouldn't be an issue. Definitely concerning that it can be picked so easily though! Would love to see a video showing *how* to replace the cylinder.
just FYI, you don't have to purchase the lockset trim, they are compatible with many off the shelf cylindrical deadbolts. With that you can actually keep the style that you have currently and have the option for a keypad (by level!)
The original Level Lock reuses the existing lock so it's completely covert. You can add it to whatever lock you've already got so even if you're renting you can still smartify your lock.
smartify - if that's not in the dictionary already, i reckon it soon will be. of course, purists might prefer smarten or even smartenise but i don't- smartify it is!
The smart bolt device itself can be purchased separately and installed on almost any deadbolt lock (it might be a different manufacturer or brand, but same concept). I'd be very interested to see you/anyone test the strength of that hollow bolt.
Hopefully you'll respond to Level's claims that lockpicking accounts for only 4% of break-ins so it doesn't matter how easy it is. They seemed to claim that the ability to see when your lock has been opened by any means, mitigates the already low risk of picking. The types of homes that have a $300 smart lock might have a higher incidence of picking. Stats such as the quoted 4% might be lower because it is an average across all demographics. In poorer neighbourhoods picking is probably very rare but in more wealthy areas the burgers are probably more likely to be targeting specific houses and planning their entry and exit more carefully. Also, if you have multiple people living in your home you probably don't check everytime the door is unlocked. The only thing I would say is that people who have such a lock are more likely to have security cameras as well.
absolutely! I agree that we'd need to see the demographics, and I would add, the study(or studies) itself. there may be some bias not being taken into account, such as funding.
There are 2 versions of the level lock. this one comes with the deadbolt part, but the other one uses your house's existing deadbolt hardware and just replaces the aprt in the door.
Level has responded, they basically said that in the real world, lock picking isn't a significant threat compared to leaving the door unlocked or leaving keys under the mat.
That's what they all say. Until it becomes easy to spot people deep in the Apple ecosystem because they use a particular type of lock, and match that to a particularly easy method of picking. At least their design is relatively obscure to the casual observer.
They ain't wrong, but If I'm dropping over $300 on a lock then it better be at least mildly difficult to pick for those rare sophisticated burglars. If I'm only worried about deterring casual thieves then I'll just buy a cheap lock.
There's also a model of this called the Level Bolt that just reuses everything from your existing lock (Including the cylinder) but replaces the cam. So the bolt version is as secure as whatever deadbolt you use.
![[1480] $329 Smart Lock Opened in Seconds (Level Lock)](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
