Summary
- Smart locks offer added security and convenience to modern homes, with features like temporary codes and automatic lock schedules.
- NFC-based digital keys, similar to mobile payment technologies, could allow users to unlock smart locks with their smartphones or smartwatches.
- The launch of Aliro, a universal standard for digital keys, may be approaching, as evidenced by recent updates to Android’s Google Play Services and AOSP.
Smart locks are a fundamental component of a modern home. You can add tons of features to your smart home’s security with a smart lock. For example, you could set a temporary, one-time entry code for landlords or maintenance workers, set automatic lock schedules to make sure your front door never accidentally goes unlocked overnight, or unlock your door with the lock’s corresponding mobile app as you approach home.
Some smart locks even incorporate video cameras or biometrics — but one feature we’re eager to see more incorporation of is NFC-based digital keys. Using the same technology that allows you to tap your phone against a register terminal to pay with a digital wallet like Google/Apple/Samsung Pay, this would mean that you could unlock or lock a smart lock with the touch of your smartphone or, even more conveniently when your hands are full, your smartwatch.
Fortunately for Android-wielding smart-homers, a group effort is underway by tech giants and smart lock manufacturers to achieve a universal standard for digital keys across all major smartphones/watch and smart lock brands. Since 2021, companies like Apple, Google, and Samsung have been working with the makers of major smart locks like Yale and Schlage on a standard called Aliro. For years, this open standard, which would achieve universal communication across mobile phones/wearables and smart access readers, was naught more than a theory.
A recent Telegram post by AssembleDebug on the GApps Flags & Leaks channel signals that the launch of Aliro may be getting close. This was backed up by evidence spotted in AOSP by Android Police contributor Mishaal Rahman.
In AssembleDebug’s February 6 X post, the leaker stated that the new Aliro service is part of the most recent Google Play Service beta, and that the service is currently disabled, but “indicates starting of the work on this standard.” Host support for the new open standard was also spotted in AOSP, Android’s open-source code base.
Back in November, The Verge reported that integration of the Aliro standard in any capacity was still at least a year and a half away. It’s easy to be hopeful that AssembleDebug’s findings just a few months later indicate that a very early version of this service could be available to non-beta users much sooner than that, but keep your enthusiasm in check; the Connectivity Standards Alliance, the collective responsible for the standard’s development, told The Verge that no launch is expected earlier than Q1 2025.
Unlocking a smart lock with universal digital keys will be monumentally useful with smart homes, but the possibilities extend far beyond that, as The Verge points out; we could eventually see these capabilities implemented on a wide-spread scale in gyms, offices, or hotel rooms. Hopefully, the popularity of this standard doesn’t outpace the necessary corresponding security measures.
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