Wyze is giving its budget smart lock a serious upgrade without touching the price.
The Wyze Lock Bolt v2 adds built-in Wi Fi so you can control and check your lock from anywhere, not just when you are standing near the door with your phone.
It still costs $79.98, keeping it firmly in the affordable smart lock camp.
Wyze says the refreshed lock builds on the original Wyze Lock Bolt that already had a fingerprint reader but relied only on Bluetooth. With Wi Fi on board, you can now lock and unlock the door remotely through the Wyze app, or with voice controls through Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. It also plugs into Wyze’s wider ecosystem, so it fits more naturally into a connected home setup.
On the hardware side, Wyze has kept the fingerprint sensor, which the company says can recognise your finger and open the door in about half a second, with biometric data stored locally on the device for security.
The old physical buttons are gone, replaced by an illuminated touchpad under tempered glass that resists scratches and smudges. You can save up to 50 unique access codes, create one-time guest codes that expire after a set time, and even hide your real PIN by tapping random digits before and after it.
There are still a couple of things to be aware of with this new version, though. Battery life is now rated at up to eight months, slightly shorter than the roughly one-year claim for the original model. To avoid getting locked out, there is a USB-C emergency port so you can briefly power the lock with a power bank if the batteries die, and there is still a regular key cylinder if you want an old-school backup.
And for security and peace of mind, the Lock Bolt v2 includes a customizable alarm that sounds if someone is tampering with the hardware or repeatedly entering the wrong code.
If you also use a Wyze video doorbell, you can tie the two together and unlock the door right from the doorbell livestream, which makes package drops and guest arrivals a lot smoother.
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