One of the most annoying parts about fitting a smart lock to your front door is how you often have to replace all of your existing hardware to make it work. A new retrofit from Yale, however, just made things a whole lot easier.
Rather than having to replace all your existing hardware, the new Yale Approach lock just fixes to the deadbolt you’ve already got. It avoids the classically massive lock that many smart locks feature as well, so you can keep the cleaner look of your door.
There is some bad news, however, for us Apple Home users. It won’t support the Apple smart home standard on launch, with support only coming later this year with the introduction of Matter-over-Thread.
Simple security
The Yale Approach is designed to be as simple as possible, in all of its aspects. Not only is it simple to fit to your door, it's also simple to use. It connects to the Yale Access app, and then lets you configure various aspects of the locking of your door, including setting up auto lock and unlocking when you’re close to your door.
You can combine the lock with the Yale Keypad as well, so that you can add some extra security in the form of an access code. The keypad can store up to 250 codes, so you can set temporary passcodes for visitors.
It’s not all doom and gloom for Apple users either. While it won’t support the Apple Home standard at launch, Yale says that there will be an update to the lock later this year which will add support for Matter-over-Thread, which will also let you connect the lock to your Apple Home setup. Until then you can still connect the lock to the Yale Access app on your iPhone.
The Yale Approach is available now for $129, and the Yale Keypad can be found for $69 at the Yale website. We’ll be sure to test the lock when we get our hands on it to find out if it ranks among the best smart locks for Apple Home.
