Eufy Security Smart Lock Touch & WiFi review

The Eufy Smart Lock Touch & WiFi is one of a slew of new smart locks that you can open using nothing but your fingerprint. This allows you to unlock your front door with a touch, with an app, a keycode or even — believe it or not — with a key. During our Eufy Smart Lock Touch review, we found it to be a neat option for those who want a lock that can be opened in a number of ways. However, among the best smart locks, its large size may be a limiting factor for many.

Eufy Smart Lock Touch & WiFi review: Price & Availability

The Eufy Smart Lock Touch & WiFi is available now, priced at $219.99. It is available in black, nickel, or silver. 

Eufy also sells the Eufy Security Smart Lock Touch for $169, but that model requires you also purchase a Wi-Fi bridge if you want to control it remotely.

Eufy Smart Lock Touch & WiFi review: Design

The Eufy Smart Lock Touch & WiFi is not a small device: it comes in two large parts that fit on either side of the door. The outer part includes the fingerprint reader, keypad, and lock cylinder, which is about 6 inches tall, 2.5 inches wide, and an inch thick. The inner part, which houses the large rechargeable batteries, motor, and manual latch mechanism, is even larger at just under eight inches tall. 

The unit we tested came in black, which had an attractive matte finish that looked good against a varnished wooden door, but you can also get this in nickel or silver finish. 

That size means that it rather dominates the door. We’ve seen a recent trend for smaller, more inconspicuous smart locks like the Level Lock Touch Edition and Kwikset Touch that don’t draw attention the way that the Eufy Smart Lock Touch & WiFi does. 

Eufy Smart Lock Touch & WiFi review: Installation

Like most smart locks, the Smart Lock Touch requires a somewhat involved install process, but it is broken down into simple steps. 

Firstly, you have to check if the lock will fit on your door. It is designed to replace a standard deadbolt lock on a 1 ⅜  to 2 ⅛ -inch thick door with a 2 ⅜ or 2 ¾  inch backset, the distance between the door edge and the middle of the hole that the lock fits into. That means that it should work on most doors and replace a deadbolt lock, but it won’t work with mortise or lever handle type locks.

Once the old lock is removed, you install the deadbolt mechanism inside the door and attach the external part of the lock. You then attach the backing plate to the internal side of the door and use a couple of long screws to hold the two together. A cable then connects the internal and external parts of the lock, and you then attach the internal part to the backing plate with a few more screws. That’s quite a few steps, but it doesn’t require any special tools beyond a screwdriver and the ability to know which end to use. These steps are also neatly indicated by numbered boxes of parts: the deadbolt mechanism is step 1, the strike plate is step 2, etc.

Once the lock is installed, you use the Eufy Security app to connect to the lock over Bluetooth, then to your Wi-Fi network. Again, the process is pretty simple if you follow the steps carefully: The Eufy Security app steps you through the process and offers support. 

The process of adding fingerprints is also fairly simple but requires a bit of time. Each fingerprint needs to be scanned on the fingerprint reader eight times to make sure that it is properly captured, each time at a slightly different angle or position. 

Eufy Smart Lock Touch & WiFi review: Performance

I found that the Eufy Smart Lock Touch & WiFi was reliable in use: it detected fingerprints without problems and rejected others that were not registered. You can register up to 50 fingerprints and 100 individual codes, which should be enough for any home. These can be assigned to up to 100 users, each of which can be revoked in the app, or given limited rights (such as only being used once, or used between certain hours only). 

When someone who isn’t authorized to open the lock tries the fingerprint reader, the lock doesn’t respond. If they keep trying, the ring around the fingerprint reader glows red after five tries. That low-key response might put off a burglar, but it might also put off someone who doesn’t realize they are using the wrong finger. Eufy also recommends that each user has two fingers registered in case of scratches or stains that might block one from being recognized. When a fingerprint is recognized, the ring around the fingerprint reader lights up white, and the door unlocks. This process is very quick, taking about a second to recognize the finger and start opening the lock. That is somewhat quicker than other fingerprint locks I’ve tested. 

The keypad is also easy to use: touch it and the keypad lights up, ready for you to enter a code and unlock the door. If you are more paranoid (or have seen spy movies where someone figures out a code by looking at the fingerprints on the keypad), you can also use a scramble code, where you can enter up to 12 random digits before or after your keycode to make it harder to spot. 

Five physical keys are included with this lock, which is of an unusual type. Two locksmiths I contacted didn’t recognize the type and said that they would be unable to produce a duplicate key, so getting more or replacing a lost key would be difficult at best. 

The lack of a rekeyable lock or a way to replace the cylinder makes this more of an issue. The lock comes with five keys, but if you misplace a key and want to make sure the lost key can’t be used, you have to replace the entire lock. That somewhat undermines the idea of being able to revoke passcodes or fingerprints: you can’t revoke a physical key. Other locks, such as the Kwikset Touch we reviewed recently, deal with this by allowing you to rekey the lock, and changing the key that opens it. Others allow you to replace the cylinder that the key is tied to, so you can use a new key without replacing the entire lock. This one doesn’t: the cylinder is fixed inside the front part of the lock.  

This lock can also be controlled through Amazon’s Alexa or Google Assistant. In both cases, Eufy includes the ability to unlock, lock or check the status of the lock with your voice. There is no support for Apple Homekit, though. 

I was not able to fully test the battery life of this smart lock, but I don’t doubt that it is long. The 10,000 mAh battery inside the back part of the battery is huge compared to most locks, and double the size of a typical cell phone battery. I certainly found that a couple of weeks of moderate use didn’t put much of a dent in the battery, which still showed over 90 percent battery capacity. To charge the battery, you remove it from the rear part of the lock and charge it using the included micro USB cable. No charger is included, but you can use the USB port of your computer or a USB phone charger. 

Eufy Smart Lock Touch & WiFi review: Verdict

The Eufy Smart Lock Touch & WiFi is an effective and well-designed smart lock. All of the major features work well: the fingerprint reader, keypad, and keys all worked as expected, providing multiple ways to get into the house. The battery life is also excellent: Eufy claims a battery life of a year between charges, and that would not surprise me. 

However, the big, bulky design of this lock may not appeal. While it looked okay on the front door of my house, it looked rather out of place when I tried it on my smaller apartment door. Like an industrial device in a home, It dominates the door on both front and back and is pretty obvious to anyone walking by. It works well, though, and the subscription-free app means that you get to control over who has permission to enter your house.