Every Smart Lock Compared: Compatibility, Batteries, and the Catch (2026)

Smart locks are the mirror image of video doorbells: there, the catch is a monthly fee; here, every lock in our library is subscription-free: the sticker price is the whole price. What sorts this category instead is fit: whether the lock works with your ecosystem, whether it can go on a rental door, and how often you’ll feed it batteries. Every cell below renders live from the same verified records behind our compatibility checker. Facts and catches, no rankings.

✓ works · ◐ partial · — no · ? unverified (we say so rather than guess). Hover any mark for the catch. *Prices at time of research — never live prices. Data last verified 2026-07-15; every fact links to its sourced product profile.

The first split: retrofit or full replacement

• Retrofit (renter-safe). The August WiFi lock ($165) and SwitchBot Lock Ultra ($230) replace only the inside thumbturn; the exterior keyway, and your landlord’s key, stay exactly as they are. The Aqara U200 ($229) plays the same trick with Matter and Apple Home Key added; its record’s catch is that fit depends on your existing deadbolt’s geometry, so measure before buying. Our renters guide covers the whole no-drilling stack.
• Full replacement (owner-grade). The Schlage Encode Plus and Sense Pro, the Yale Assure Lock 2 Plus, and the eufy FamiLock S3 Max swap the entire deadbolt for new hardware, BHMA Grade 1 in Schlage’s case. Note the Yale and the Sense Pro are key-free: no keyway at all, so their only physical fallback is an emergency-power port (covered below).
• The odd one out: the Level Lock Pro ($349) is a full replacement that looks like nothing happened: the entire mechanism lives inside the door. The trade, per its record: no keypad on the lock itself, and remote access needs a Thread border router or Level’s $79 bridge.

The second split: how you actually unlock

Every lock here does phone-app unlock; the differences are at the door. Keypad codes: both Schlages, Yale, eufy. Fingerprint: Aqara, SwitchBot. Face/palm recognition: the SwitchBot (the only tri-biometric: face + palm + fingerprint) and eufy’s 0.6-second palm-vein reader. Apple Home Key tap-to-unlock: five of the eight; the full breakdown is our Home Key guide. UWB hands-free (the door unlocks as you approach, phone still in your pocket): the 2026 frontier, on the Sense Pro only.

The third split: ecosystem reach

Locks adopted Matter faster than any camera brand, so the ecosystem columns above are greener than the doorbell table’s, but the catches matter:

• Apple households are spoiled here: five Home Key locks, and the Sense Pro adds UWB on top. The one caveat is that the Yale’s Apple support rides its Wi-Fi cloud rather than Matter/Thread: the tap is local, the rest isn’t. The eufy FamiLock is the one hard “no Apple” row.
• Alexa/Google households: everything works; the SwitchBot routes through its required hub (that’s its catch: remote, Matter, and voice all need the extra box), and the Yale needs its built-in-Wi-Fi model rather than the Bluetooth-only one.
• Home Assistant: the Matter locks pair locally; August and the Yale are community-integration-only (unofficial), and August’s record adds the deeper caveat: it’s the most cloud-dependent lock of the set.

Batteries are the category’s real recurring cost, from 3 months (August) to ~18 months (the Yale), and what happens when they die ranges from “use your existing key” (the retrofits) to “hold a 9V battery to the Yale’s terminal” or “touch a USB-C power bank to the Sense Pro.” That’s covered model-by-model in what happens when your smart lock battery dies. To match a lock to your actual setup, run it through the checker or start from the quiz.