I purchased a TownSteel E-Smart 5000 (BLE) Deadbolt from CLK Supplies. For a little over $250. This is cheaper than the Level Lock Touch that I got to test and has a one star review on here.
The deadbolt replaced my current deadbolt (A Schlage B560) both are ANSI Grade 2 commercial deadbolts so they should stand up to similar abuse.
Both locks have a cylinder which takes a standard Schlage SC key blank. The B560 comes as a 5 pin lock but is fitted with a six pin cylinder. Unfortunately the TownSteel comes with only a five pin cylinder. The only other fault I have found so far is that the strike plate dust box is plastic rather than metal. This is not a big security issue as the strike plate takes the brunt of the force if the door is being kicked in, not the dust box. (This is the bit in the frame that the bolt slides into)
Once the installation had been completed, mostly smoothly, (the instructions about the orientation of the tailpiece come after the instructions telling you to install the outside part of the lock) I was ready to try it out.
This lock offers four different modes of operation from the outside. I have tried three of them so far.
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You can use a key. This works pretty much exactly as you would expect. The key goes in the hole and it turns. Then the key comes out of the hole.
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You can use a six to ten digit code. You have to set a new master pin before you can do this but the programming manual is straightforward. The master pin can be used or you can add additional pins.
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Once you have set a master pin you can also add RFID Credentials. This is pretty easy, you put it in new credential mode and scan an RFID card. The lock comes with two partial cards (about the size of a key ring) and two stickers. I checked them with a Proxmark3 Easy and they are all MiFare ISO 14443A tags. I don’t have any implants so I couldn’t test one of those but I do have a dual frequency ring. I added my ring as a card and it scanned perfectly. Given that the ring is an NTAG216 I would imagine any similar implants would also work.
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Bluetooth (there is also a wireless version of this lock, which requires a gateway). Town Steel have an App (TSE-Home) which can talk to the lock. I haven’t set this up yet so I don’t know how well it works yet. Given that the other three modes are currently working perfectly I don’t think it would be an issue.
Overall Score 4 out of 5. I knocked a total of one star off for the five pin cylinder (I haven’t tried swapping it out yet), the minor issue in the instructions, and the plastic dust box. None of these are big issues alone, but I felt combined they might be worth a star.
While I can’t guarantee that an implant will work with the RFID reader I think it would be highly likely to.
