With the rise of smart home, more and more consumers favor the convenience brought by smart products. With the rapid development of intelligent locks, the unlocking methods are not limited to the traditional mechanical key unlocking, but there are as many as four kinds of unlocking methods, which completely solves the embarrassing situation that you can’t enter the door because you forgot your key when you go out. In addition to convenience, in terms of security, smart locks are also visualized, which supports remote management of mobile APP, which is the advantage of smart locks compared with traditional locks. However, there are several smart lock brands on the market at present. How to choose the right one? After a week’s use, I share a true smart lock with trump card strength: TCL K5. Overall performance, fast, accurate and stable.
At the beginning of the article, the main highlights are counted first. 1. The super-running surface design has outstanding appearance; 2. Open it as soon as you hold it, and the fingerprint of 0.3S will be unlocked; 3. Large fingerprint recognition area, with a false recognition rate of less than 0.001%; 4. Multiple unlocking, remote management, bid farewell to security risks. After understanding its main highlights, let’s take a look at the specific performance of the smart lock through more details.
Appearance: exquisite curved surface, inspired by super running.
As the first protective barrier of the home, the smart lock not only has high safety performance, but also its appearance design is particularly important. Especially when guests come to visit, a uniquely designed smart lock can often make people feel the owner’s taste in life from the beginning. For this, TCL K5 not only decorated the facade, but also decorated the dignity of life.
On the outer packaging, TCL K5 is packed in thick kraft paper, with the brand logo of TCL and the brand slogan of "Creativity Touches Life" printed on the front. Located above the packaging box, there is a portable handle, which is convenient for carrying at any time.
In addition to the lock body and accessories at the top, there is an independent small package with a built-in lock body and mounting screws.
All packaging accessories, including: smart lock front and rear panels, lock body, lock core, cards, mechanical keys, manuals, installation drawings, batteries and square shafts and other accessories.
For the lock body, TCL K5 is made of stainless steel SUS 304, with a C-class real ferrule design in structure. There is also a connecting wire on one side of the lock body, which is connected with the connecting wire of the outer panel during installation, so that it is convenient to intelligently detect the on-off state of the door lock during use.
The outer panel material, TCL K5, is not sloppy. It is made of aluminum alloy and zinc alloy, and the surface has been brushed to some extent, which looks very high-end and luxurious at first glance. In addition, this material can also withstand the use in harsh environments such as high humidity and high salinity, and its roughness resistance is better than that of ordinary aluminum alloys.
In terms of structural design, the upper and lower ends of the front and rear panels of TCL K5 have very exquisite surface designs, which are inspired by the appearance of super-running. In addition to the curved surface, the front and rear panels of TCL K5 also have a symmetrical layered design. For the outer panel, the upper end is a sliding cover, the middle part is a handle integrating fingerprints, and the bottom is hidden with a mechanical keyhole. For the inner panel, after opening the cover of the whole inner panel, you can see that there is a battery compartment hidden at the upper end. After the buckle is pressed and closed, you can’t see the location of the battery compartment at all. On the whole, the hidden design of the inner and outer panels greatly improves the sense of unity of the fuselage.
It is particularly worth mentioning that when the password is unlocked, there is no need to manually slide the slider. But there is no operation within 10 seconds, and the slider will automatically slide down, which can be said to be very human.
With the integrated design of the handle and fingerprint, the convenience is self-evident. When unlocking, the door can be opened by pressing down, and the whole process is completed in one go. Moreover, the coverage density of fingerprint identification area is increased to 192*192, which is 1.4 times more than that of 160*160 in most industries, bringing a fast, accurate and stable unlocking experience.
From top to bottom, in addition to the hidden design mentioned above, there are speakers and USB emergency interface at the bottom of the outer panel. This design is popular in most smart locks at present and can be regarded as a conventional design point.
Compared with the outer panel, the hidden design of the inner panel battery compartment is more detailed. In addition to opening the inner panel cover, the battery compartment is covered with a battery box cover. This multi-layer protection design can play a more strict and secret protection measure.
At the handle design of the inner panel, TCL K5 has a cat’s-eye-proof design. When you open the door and press the handle, you need to hold down this physical button. Therefore, TCL K5 can effectively put an end to more potential safety hazards when dealing with the unlocking of some small black boxes.
The anti-lock button is located at the bottom of the inner panel and needs to be pressed inward when in use. The overall structural layout, TCL K5 is concise without losing the sense of hierarchy. From the design of super-running, the lines of the fuselage are smoother with exquisite curved surfaces, creating a high-quality and textured appearance.
Installation step
In terms of installation, TCL’s after-sales service is also very good. You only need to make an appointment in advance, and a professional master will come to the door for free installation, which largely solves the situation that users will not install or have no time to install themselves. Below, share the general installation steps.
Step 1: Before installing TCL K5, you need to remove the original lock of the door. Fix the lock body equipped with TCL K5 in the door frame and fix it with four screws.
Step 2: After the lock body is fixed, adjust the direction of the handles of the inner and outer panels according to the direction of the door. After confirmation, fix the outer panel (install square shaft, cotter pin and other accessories according to the drawings) and connect the connecting wire between the lock body and the outer panel.
Step 3: Finally, the inner and outer panels are fixed by screws. Finally, after installing the battery and the inner panel cover, the test is started. The whole installation process is basically completed.
Attach an effect diagram of the whole installation.
Remote APP management
As a manifestation of intelligence, TCL K5 supports the remote management of mobile APP, which has the advantage that even if we are not at home, we can know the open state of the lock at home through the APP. Even for some emergencies, unlocking can be done calmly and freely, such as temporary cleaning of housekeeping, which can generate temporary passwords; Old people forget to bring their cards, and they can also unlock them remotely by mobile phones. Compared with traditional mechanical locks, the safety and convenience are indeed much better.
As shown above, after adding devices, you can see online smart devices in my device main interface. Click in to enter the door lock management interface. In the interface, you can see the unlocking record of the door lock, and the time and the unlocking method used can be seen at a glance. In addition, click on the upper right corner of the management interface of the APP lock to set the relevant parameters of the lock, such as room management, anti-hijacking fingerprint alarm and other security settings.
Secondly, you can also add and delete fingerprints and cards on the APP side. Up to 100 pieces of fingerprint data and 20 groups of digital passwords can be built in. In addition to the card, password, fingerprint and other single unlocking modes. TCL K5 can also set double unlocking modes, including double fingerprint mode, fingerprint+password mode and fingerprint+card mode. It can be said that TCL K5 has achieved double insurance in unlocking security.
Multi-scene unlocking test
Based on the daily unlocking methods, TCL K5 supports six unlocking methods, namely: fingerprint, card, key, temporary password, APP remote authorization unlocking and digital password. Among them, fingerprint unlocking, password unlocking, card unlocking and mechanical key unlocking are tested in multiple scenes.
For fingerprint unlocking, TCL K5 is very sensitive. Based on its larger fingerprint recognition area, the unlocking rate reaches 0.3S, and the unlocking error rate is reduced to 0.001%. Moreover, when the identification number reaches 5 times, the smart lock will automatically lock for 3 minutes, and the corresponding unlocking information will be sent on the APP.
Compared with fingerprint unlocking, password unlocking is often used. In the actual test, just slide the slide cover, the panel area will be automatically displayed, enter the password and start unlocking.
Of course, in order to meet the needs of different family members, TCL K5 also supports card unlocking, and only needs to add the used cards to users. For the elderly or children at home, it will be relatively practical, and you don’t need to remember complicated passwords, but you can quickly unlock them with a brush.
Mechanical key unlocking, as the last alternative, is also supported by TCL K5. The design of mechanical keyhole is hidden, and when necessary, the external panel needs to be pried out by using foreign objects, which is a bit troublesome to open. On the whole, it is not recommended to use mechanical keys to unlock the lock unless you have to.
In addition to these single-unlock modes tested above, you can also try to use the double-unlock mode, but in my opinion, the single-unlock mode is enough for daily use. In addition, there is another point. In case of special circumstances, TCL K5 also supports requesting unlocking. By pressing the 8+# key in the keyboard area, a window requesting unlocking will appear on the mobile phone APP. It will be very practical for dealing with some temporary locks, such as temporary visits by friends.
What are the expectations for smart locks after the diversity and security of unlocking are solved? Presumably, battery life is the last concern of many users. Here, the battery life of TCL K5 can be changed for 365 days. Moreover, during installation, 8 batteries can be installed in it at a time, of which 4 batteries are used for work and the other 4 batteries are used as backup, and the battery life is still very long.
summary
After a period of use, TCL K5 gives me the greatest feeling: fast unlocking speed, high unlocking accuracy, diversified unlocking and double unlocking modes bring a more stable door opening experience. Whether compared with traditional locks or other smart locks on the market at present, TCL K5 is worthy of being an ace smart lock, which makes it safe and convenient to accompany us every day.