Apple’s Home Key to form basis of a new smart lock standard, Aliro

Just as HomeKit led to the development of the broader smart home standard Matter, so Apple’s Home Key is spurring the adoption of a new industry standard for smart locks and digital keys: Aliro.

The new standard is being championed by Apple, Google, and Samsung – along with a number of smart lock companies …

HomeKit to Matter

One of the biggest pain points of early smart home devices was needing to control them using a bunch of different apps. That was the problem Apple solved with HomeKit. Compatible devices could now all be controlled in Apple’s Home app, and using Siri.

Google and Samsung had their own equivalents, meaning there were effectively three different standards – and Apple’s licensing fees meant that fewer devices supported HomeKit than Google Assistant and Samsung’s SmartThings.

Matter solved this. It’s a single, industry-wide standard supported by more than 600 companies. If a device is Matter-compatible, then it’s effectively automatically HomeKit-compatible.

HomeKey to Aliro

We’re now set to see the same thing happen with Apple’s Home Key standard.

Any Home Key compatible lock – whether it’s in a home, office, or car – can be opened with your iPhone or Apple Watch, without the need to use the lock maker’s own app.

What Aliro will do is bring the same benefits to smart locks as Matter brings to other devices. With both tech companies and lock makers signed up, it should mean that we can use our Apple devices to open almost any smart lock with nothing more than a tap.

The standard is being developed by the same industry body behind Matter, the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA).

The Connectivity Standards Alliance, an international community of more than 675 technology companies committed to open standards for the Internet of Things, is proud to unveil Aliro, a new effort aimed at transforming how users unlock doors or other entry points using their mobile device or wearable […]

With the support of companies such as Allegion, Apple, ASSA ABLOY, Google, Infineon, Kastle Systems, Last Lock, NXP Semiconductors, Qualcomm, Samsung, and STMicroelectronics, Aliro was formed as a new effort within the Alliance to solve this unique challenge.

The CSA has 675 members, so we can expect many more companies to support it in time.

The standard will support three different forms of comms between a lock and the device which unlocks it:

• Near Field Communication (NFC)
• Bluetooth Low-Energy (LE)
• Ultra-Wideband (UWB)

There’s no word yet on how long it will be before we see the first Aliro-compatible smart locks on sale, but once they do arrive, the user experience will be identical to that of Home Key locks – just tap your device to unlock.