Best Smart Locks 2026: Schlage Encode Plus and 11 Rivals Ranked

Every smart lock is two products in one box: a deadbolt and a computer, and most brands are only good at one of them. Schlage is the rare name strong on both. The Encode Plus starts with the company's own deadbolt hardware, the part that actually keeps the door shut, and layers the connected features on top rather than the other way around. Codes on the keypad for the dog sitter, a physical key in a drawer for the day everything else fails, and tap-to-unlock for you.

The tap is the killer feature. Instead of opening an app, waking a screen, or punching a code with grocery bags on your arm, you hold your phone or watch to the lock and the bolt turns. Once a household gets used to that motion, nothing else in this guide feels finished. The standard Encode below saves you $90 by skipping it, and our head-to-head at the bottom of the page argues about whether that trade is worth it. A smart lock is also only one third of a front door: pair it with a pick from our video doorbell guide and our security camera rankings and the whole entry is covered.

If the Encode Plus is the lock we would buy, the standard Encode is the lock we recommend most often. It is the same fundamental machine: a real Schlage deadbolt, WiFi inside the lock itself so remote access needs no bridge or hub, a lit keypad for codes, and a keyway for the backup key. What the $90 discount removes is the tap-to-unlock party trick and a slimmer interior assembly.

For a keypad household, that discount is free money. Codes for the family, temporary codes for guests and cleaners, and an app when you are away covers ninety percent of what people actually do with a smart lock. The honest question is whether your household is a phone-tap household or a code household, and the head-to-head below exists because plenty of buyers do not know until they think about it.

The Vision Pro is what happens when a smart home company decides the keypad itself is the friction. Its pitch is recognition instead of interaction: the lock sees your face or reads your palm and the door is open before your hand reaches the handle. Add a fingerprint reader and you have three ways in that require nothing in your pockets. For a household with kids, groceries, or mobility considerations, that is not a gimmick, it is the entire product.

Our hesitation is the same one we apply to every ambitious newcomer: a front door lock has to work in year five, in weather, after the novelty wears off. Schlage and Yale have decades of boring reliability behind them; SwitchBot has momentum and imagination. Buy the Vision Pro because you want the future on your door and you are comfortable being slightly early to it.

August built its reputation on one insight: most people who want a smart lock are not allowed to change their lock. The Pro + Connect mounts over the interior side of the deadbolt you already have. Your key still works, your landlord's key still works, the hallway side of the door looks identical, and yet the bolt now locks itself behind you and opens from your phone. The included Connect hub is what puts it on your WiFi for control from anywhere.

The trade is the missing keypad. Guests and kids without phones need a key or someone home, where a keypad deadbolt hands out codes freely. Read the retrofit-versus-replacement section below before choosing this path; if you own your door, a full replacement usually buys more lock for the money. If you rent, August is the category and this is its flagship.

Schlage versus Kwikset is the oldest argument in American residential hardware, and it continues into the smart era. The Halo is Kwikset's hubless WiFi deadbolt: full replacement, touchscreen for codes, a keyway for backup, and remote everything through the app with no bridge plugged in anywhere. At $199 verified it consistently sits a step below the equivalent Schlage, which is the traditional shape of this rivalry.

The practical difference for most buyers is the input surface. The Halo's touchscreen is glassy and modern; the Encode's physical buttons are easier to hit reliably in the dark, in the rain, and for older hands. Pick by which of those doors sounds like yours. Either way you are getting a real deadbolt from a company that has made millions of them.

Most smart locks announce themselves from the curb; the Assure Lock 2 is the one that does not. Yale took the full-replacement deadbolt and put it on a diet, and the result is a lock that sits on a nice door without dominating it. Underneath the design is the boring good stuff: a real deadbolt from a company that has been making locks since the 1800s, a keypad for codes, and WiFi connectivity for the app.

At $169.99 verified, it is also quietly one of the best deals on the page, $59 under the standard Encode and $29 under the Halo. The Schlage still takes the top spot on the strength of its keypad ergonomics and tap-to-unlock option, but if design matters to you at all, this is the lock the other two should be nervous about.

The U100 is the arbitrage play of this guide: the Encode Plus's headline feature at a Yale-undercutting price. Tap an iPhone or Apple Watch and the door opens; press a fingertip and it opens; punch a code and it opens. Three modern entry paths on a $149.99 lock is a spec sheet nothing else here matches for the money.

What you are trading is a century of deadbolt reputation for a decade of smart-home cleverness. Aqara makes genuinely good connected gear, and this lock is its best-known product for a reason, but Schlage's business depends on bolts that survive twenty winters and Aqara's depends on ecosystems. For an Apple household that wants the tap without the $319, this is the smart bet. For the forever door, the Encode Plus keeps the crown.

Ultraloq's pitch is simple: every feature the premium locks advertise, at a price that makes you re-read the listing. The U-Bolt Pro WiFi covers fingerprint entry for the family, codes for guests, app control from anywhere, and, the underrated part, a door sensor. A smart lock without one will happily throw the bolt on a wide-open door and report your house secure; the sensor is what makes the auto-lock features trustworthy.

At $129.97 verified, the honest comparison is not against the Schlages, it is against spending nothing. This is the lock for the buyer who was going to skip the category over price, and it is the reason our value pick badge lives here. If your budget can stretch $20 more, the Aqara U100 swaps the door sensor for Apple Home Key, and the head-to-head below picks that fight on purpose.

Most smart locks assume your handle is staying; the C33 assumes it should not. It is a single unit that replaces the deadbolt and the handle together, which means the hardware matches, the keypad sits naturally above the grip, and the door ends up looking planned rather than retrofitted. Built-in WiFi handles remote access without a hub.

The natural buyer is someone already in the eufy ecosystem, and this guide's doorbell rankings explain why so many people are: eufy's no-monthly-fee stance is the best in mainstream home security. A C33 on the door, an E340 doorbell beside it, and cameras from our security camera guide makes a complete front entry that answers to one app.

Strip the smart lock category to its most-used feature and you get this: a code instead of a key. The SmartCode 270 does that one thing with Kwikset deadbolt hardware and does nothing else. No pairing, no firmware, no account. Punch the code, the bolt opens. For a surprising number of doors, that is the whole requirement, and everything above it in this guide is paying for features that door will never use.

We include it, clearly labeled, because the honest answer to "which smart lock for my garage entry door" is often "not a smart lock at all." If you catch yourself wanting to check the lock from work or hand out codes remotely, step up to the Ultraloq; that is precisely the line between this tier and the next.

Wyze has spent a decade doing one trick extremely well: finding the cheapest defensible version of whatever the smart home is excited about. The Auto-Lock Bolt v2 is that trick applied to fingerprint entry. Seventy-nine dollars buys a deadbolt that opens to a touch, locks itself behind you, and uses a scanner that learns your print as it goes rather than degrading with a bad first enrollment.

Its natural competition inside this guide is the Kwikset 270: two sub-$100 answers to keyless entry, one betting on codes and legacy hardware, one betting on biometrics and value engineering. The Wyze is the more modern daily experience; the Kwikset is the one your locksmith has heard of. At these prices, plenty of houses will justifiably buy one of each for different doors.

The DL100 answers the question most shoppers actually have, which is not "which smart lock is best" but "is this category worth it for us at all." Sixty dollars buys the full core experience: codes at the door, lock and unlock from the app, and scheduled access for the recurring visitors in your life. TP-Link ships more budget smart home hardware than almost anyone, so the software side is far more polished than the price implies.

Run the experiment. If six months in the household uses the keypad daily and you find yourself wanting fingerprints, tap-to-unlock, or nicer hardware, graduate to the Ultraloq or the Encode Plus and move the Tapo to the garage door. That is not a wasted purchase, it is the cheapest possible way to learn what your front door actually needs.