By Dan Moren

January 29, 2024 2:49 PM PT

Review: Level Lock+ brings Apple home key support to the stealth smart lock

Note: This story has not been updated since 2024.

When I reviewed the Level Bolt a couple years ago, I was generally impressed with its unobtrusive nature and HomeKit integration.

But though I’ve continued to use the Bolt since then, I’ve become keenly aware that its reliance on Bluetooth as its wireless connectivity of choice is letting down the side. Fundamentally, Bluetooth just isn’t the right choice for a smart lock: it’s not inherently designed for proximity and it’s always been temperamental. For better or worse, that lack of reliability meant that, for me, the Bolt has ended up being little more than a lock of average intelligence.

In the meantime, smart lock technology has moved on. Fortunately, Level hasn’t been standing still either. Enter the Level Lock+, an upgraded version of Level’s flagship smart lock which, in addition to Bluetooth, has added NFC, enabling support for Apple’s home key standard. That felt like a good enough reason for me to check it out, and Level kindly provided me with a review unit to put through its paces.

The Lock+ essentially replaces both the Level Lock and Level Lock – Touch Edition, providing a single model with all the bells and whistles. No surprise, all those bells and whistles come at a price: the Level Lock+ retails for $349, though that includes the Connect Wi-Fi bridge as part of the package (more on which in a bit).

Unlike the Bolt, the Level Lock+ is a complete replacement for your existing deadbolt, complete with keyway and turn paddle. But like the Bolt, the Lock+ excels by not standing out: if you don’t tell anyone that it’s a smart lock, literally nobody will ever know. Level offers the Lock+ in four finishes to match those of common door hardware: Matte Black, Satin Chrome, Satin Nickel, and Polished Brass. I opted for the last, which blends in nicely with my existing door hardware.

In addition to the lock and installation hardware (which includes two strike plates of different sizes and a longer cap for the bolt to adjust to different door sizes), the Lock+ package bundles a CR2 battery to power the motor, a pair of keys, and a pair of NFC key fobs.

The art of installation

I probably had an easier time installing the Lock+ than most users: I was already using the Level Bolt, and the internal mechanism of the Lock+ is basically the same size and shape. That meant I just had to remove my existing deadbolt, pull out the Bolt’s two parts (its internal motor and the bolt itself), and replace it with the Lock+’s own equivalents.

There was one trepidatious moment where I realized I hadn’t measured to make sure the Lock+ was the same size, a fact I only discovered when the plate of the deadbolt seemed just a smidge larger than the hole in my door. Fortunately, a few whaps with a rubber mallet and everything was copacetic.¹

With the Lock+ hardware in place, I just had to attach the keyway and paddle, screw them together, and pop in the battery. All in, the whole process took maybe 10 minutes.

(Though I do have to add an asterisk to the end because of everybody’s favorite: software. When I initially set up the lock, I ran into some trouble adding it in HomeKit, mainly because I’d neglected to rename my existing Bolt and tried to use the same name for the Lock+. This ended up with the HomeKit process failing; ultimately, I had to reset the Lock+, which required removing the back housing and pressing a tiny button on it. It was a problem largely of my own making, and the second time around worked just fine.)

Depending on your setup, one downside to the Lock+ over the Bolt might be the physical keyway. Since the Bolt uses your existing deadbolt, you can keep your existing keys; that’s handy if you have several locks keyed the same. You can rekey the Lock+ to any existing key, but Level recommends using a professional locksmith. While I’ve rekeyed a few locks in the last couple years, I wasn’t brave enough to take this on with the review unit, so I was stuck with an extra key on my keychain.

And, of course, the Level Lock+, like all other smart locks, is always subject to the vagaries of your particular door. Level highly recommends making sure your door opens and closes smoothly before proceeding with installation.

Make sure you’re connected

As with the Bolt, once the Lock+ is set up, you can access it from either the Level app or the Home app. The former offers a few features unavailable via HomeKit, including the ability to create time-limited passes for others (for which they themselves will need to download the Level app), code physical NFC keycards (available from Level for a separate cost), and tweak settings like volume level and range. In truth, I rarely use it beyond setup.

For those who don’t use HomeKit, Level+ is now enabling integration for Google Home and Amazon Alexa, but there’s a catch: you’ll need to use the Level Connect included along with the Lock+. The Connect (which you can also buy separately) is essentially a Bluetooth-to-Wi-Fi bridge: plug it in within 20 feet of your Lock+ and you can access the lock’s functionality via your network. Unfortunately, each Connect only works with a single lock, which could definitely get a bit cumbersome if you want to have several in your house.

This is one place that HomeKit has a major advantage, since if you already have a compatible home hub (an Apple TV or a HomePod), it already handles all of this functionality for you.

There’s one more wrinkle in the connectivity story: though Level has said that its smart locks have Thread radios and would be updated to support Matter, the company has yet to deploy that functionality—supposedly it’s due for 2024, but given the continued evolution of the Matter standard, it may be a while yet. Thus, in the meantime, the Level Connect.

Home key advantage

And now for the main event, the raison d’être for this review: Level’s support for Apple’s home key standard. I admit to some envy about Jason’s home-key-compatible smart lock, and now that I’ve actually used it for several weeks, I can say that envy was well justified: home key is a fantastic feature, and I can’t imagine ever investing in a smart lock that doesn’t support it.

For those who haven’t yet taken the plunge, home key allows you to use your Apple Watch or iPhone to lock or unlock your door just by holding the device nearby. And, with Express Mode enabled, there’s no need to even unlock or wake up your device. In practice, I’ve ended up almost always using my Apple Watch for this, given that it doesn’t require me to dig into my pocket to pull out my phone—at which point, why not just get my keys?

To me, home key is far superior to the location-based auto-unlock/auto-lock option that the Bolt offered². For one thing, it requires intentionality on a user’s part, which vastly reduces both false positives and false negatives. For another, it improves precision: given the proximity basis of NFC, the locking/unlocking is immediate, as opposed to the Bluetooth location-based system, which could have a significant lag time.

In my usage, the home key functionality is almost completely reliable. About 95 percent of the time, it works exactly as I expect. About 5 percent of the time, I’ve run into issues where I needed to have my watch positioned just right³, or there was a mechanical issue where the door didn’t lock correctly because, for example, it wasn’t all the way closed.⁴ In both those cases, I’ve always been able to get the door to open with home key, it just took slightly longer. I think I’ve used the physical key maybe once in the weeks that I’ve had the Lock+ installed.

To put it bluntly: This is how a smart lock should work.

Sharing access requires setting up passes in the Level app.

I have run into one asterisk to the home key functionality, however: sharing. For those who are members of your household, it’s no problem—my wife immediately had access to the home key for our house once I’d added it, no additional configuration required. But if we want to share access to the smart lock with, say, a friend visiting from out of town or a contractor, we’d still have to go through Level’s system; you can’t share iOS home keys with people who aren’t in your household. (Some smart locks do have “passes” that can be managed through the Home app, but Level doesn’t appear to support that functionality.) That said, this is an Apple issue, not a Level one, and it’s a feature I’d hope to see the company add in a future iOS update.

Reach out and touch something

The Lock+ offers other features, but the only one I’ve used routinely is the “Touch to Lock” feature. With this enabled, you can put a finger on the outside lock housing and it will automatically engage the lock. This means you don’t even have to use your device to lock the door behind you, which I find extremely convenient. And since you’re locking the door, there’s not really a security concern. You can, however, set up a time window within which this feature is available after either the lock is used and/or it detects the door opening or closing.

Once or twice I’ve accidentally hit the housing when the door was opening and triggered it, but those incidents have been rare, and it just means you have to unlock it again (usually when the door is open, so no big deal).

There is a similar “Touch to Unlock” feature, but I haven’t bothered turning that one on, largely because it relies on the Bluetooth geolocation features that I found so unreliable in the Bolt. I do, however, appreciate that there’s a separate aspect of this feature, which lets you use Touch to Unlock within ten seconds of Touch to Lock, in case you suddenly realize you left something inside.

Verdict: It’s a lock

What I predominantly liked about the Level Bolt was its inconspicuous nature married with its smart features, and the Lock+ improves upon that in almost every way. The addition of home key support is a home run⁵, the Touch to Lock feature is way more useful than I thought it would be, and even though I had to replace my existing deadbolt, the Lock+ styling is seamless.

At $349, the Lock+ is definitely not cheap. Other home key compatible locks, such as the Schlage Encode Plus and the Yale Assure Lock 2, can be had for under $300. Both also include keypads as part of their housings, however, which may or may not appeal to you from an aesthetic or functional standpoint.⁶

But having used the Lock+ for several weeks now, I’m hard-pressed to want to go back to the Bolt, which had started to feel like a smart lock in name only. In addition to hopefully getting my own Lock+ to replace this review unit, I’m also planning on adding one to our front door when we refinish it later this year. As skeptical as I’ve been in the past about smart locks, home key has made me a believer, and I’m ready to ditch my keys for good.

Update: An earlier version of this article misstated the price of other smart locks: they can be had for under $300, not under $200.

[Dan Moren is the East Coast Bureau Chief of Six Colors, as well as an author, podcaster, and two-time Jeopardy! champion. You can find him on Mastodon at @dmoren@zeppelin.flights or reach him by email at dan@sixcolors.com. His latest novel, the sci-fi spy thriller The Armageddon Protocol, is out now.]

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