Connectivity Standard Alliance Launches Aliro Standard for Smart Locks

The Connectivity Standards Alliance has launched their new standard for secure, interoperable smart locks called Aliro.

The new standard promises to allow unlocking your locks with just a tap of your phone instead of needing to use an app or type a code into a keypad or use a thumbprint scanner.

It will also allow cross-platform compatibility, allowing iOS, Android, and even wearables like smart watches to securely unlock smart locks.

The functionality was originally available via Apple home key, with the option to either require your phone’s unlock method or simply allowing you to unlock by tapping your phone near the lock, dubbed Express Mode. There’s also the option to automatically lock your home when you leave.

Apple home key is, of course, exclusive to Apple devices however. With Aliro, this functionality will be available to Android users for the first time. You can even securely allow guests into your home with a temporary access code that you can revoke later, so you don’t have to leave a key under your mat or something. There’s scant details available on the CSA website about whether all of the same features will be coming to the Aliro standard, so we’ll just have to wait and see.

The CSA also makes the Matter standard to unify IoT appliances, however Aliro is a separate standard because Matter, an IP-based networking standard, is not appropriate for the Bluetooth, Ultra-Wideband and Near-Field Communication radio-based functionality of these smart locks.

It seems like we’ve seen a push in recent years toward making previously proprietary technology more standardized and interoperable. With Google making QuickShare compatible with iPhones and Apple donating its MagSafe tech to the Qi standard, I think we will continue seeing it more and more. We need to keep pushing for open standards and interoperability, and support laws that make companies accountable for it.

Apple has a similar feature for car keys. It’s unclear if there are plans to also standardize this feature as well, but even if that happens, it might take a bit of time for auto manufacturers to get on board.

Your home keys in the Apple version are stored in your digital wallet. With the recent push from the FIDO alliance to standardize digital wallets, I wonder how this new standard will interact with those wallets, if at all.

I think it might be a bit early to replace all your home locks with smart locks, however. Locks exist in the physical world and as such are beholden to the limits of the real world. Manufacturing tolerances are often exploited in regular locks to bypass them, and I would expect smart locks to be no different. No matter how secure your cryptography is, it doesn’t matter if you can simply shim it open.

There’s also the matter of power: these locks tend to run on a battery that needs to be charged every so often. Although they last months typically, the lock running out of power and locking you out is still a real possibility. Good luck getting a locksmith for your fancy smart lock.

Regardless, I think this is a good step for the technology. Manufacturers will likely just need some time to work out the kinks in how to make secure locks that don’t fall to basic physical attacks, although it’s not like regular locks fair much better as subscribers to the channel the Lockpicking Lawyer well know.