Android users have been able to unlock their cars with their phones for years now. But when it comes to the front door of your home, it isn’t as simple. You still need a smart lock with a dedicated app or an iPhone with Apple’s Home Key. Now, Samsung is putting its digital key software into the wild with Digital Home Key, an add-on feature in the Samsung Wallet app that will unlock your front door on compatible smart locks.
According to Samsung, its Digital Home Key experience will be powered by Aliro, a smart home protocol running on Matter designed specifically for smart locks and digital keys. Aliro 1.0 was only launched on Feb. 26, so Samsung’s Digital Home Key is the first digital key to support the new standard. Apple and Google have also committed to supporting the standard going forward.
You’ll be able to set up an Aliro-supported lock and then add the digital key to your Samsung Wallet. Upon approaching the door, you’ll be able to open the lock with its dedicated app by tapping your phone to the lock using NFC, or automatically using ultrawideband, which doesn’t require tapping. The options will be configurable in the lock’s dedicated app.
The rollout began Monday to Samsung Wallet on well over a dozen devices, including every Samsung Galaxy S model from the Galaxy S21 onward, four A-series models and the Xcover 7 Pro. The first iteration of the feature supports only NFC, and Samsung says UWB support will roll out in April to compatible devices.
What is Aliro?
Samsung adding digital house keys to Samsung Wallet is the news peg, but the potential long-term win for consumers is with Aliro. The reason why the Apple Home Key is so cool is that it just works. You don’t need a dedicated app or anything complicated. The information is stored directly on your iPhone, and the lock recognizes it as the correct key. The problem is that it only works with an iPhone and a lock specifically set up to support Apple Home Key.
Aliro addresses these issues by using an open industry standard. As it becomes available, it will work with phones and locks from manufacturers that adopt the Aliro specification. It’s built by the Connectivity Standards Alliance, the same group that oversees Matter and Thread.
Tobin Richardson, president and CEO of the CSA, says that this should be the standard that makes digital keys more accessible to people.
“By connecting the access control industry directly to leading mobile wallet ecosystems, it delivers a secure, frictionless experience that goes well beyond the front door,” Richardson said in a statement. “Lower integration complexity means faster innovation and shorter time to market. This is how the future of access control gets built.”
Read more: Your Smart Lock Buying Guide: Choose the Best Lock for Your Door
As with all standards, some people may be curious how it works. It’s similar to Thread. Devices built on Matter have to talk to each other somehow, and that means they have to do it over a connection of some sort. Some smart home gadgets use Wi-Fi for this, which is fine in small doses, but it isn’t the most secure method of data transmission and can clog a home router quickly when too many devices share it.
Thread is a network protocol that lets Matter devices communicate more securely without using Wi-Fi bandwidth, and Aliro is very similar but only works between door locks and digital keys on smartphones. Since it doesn’t need an internet connection to function, it can be used anywhere, and the CSA uses asymmetric cryptography to keep out the ne’er-do-wells.
Samsung appears to be the first big name to support the standard with an actual product on the market, so there’s no way to use this technology yet. The first such devices are expected from Samsung’s partners, including Aqara, Schlage, Ultralok and Nuki, in the coming months.
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