Unlock Your Home with Your Samsung Phone
▼ Summary
– Samsung is rolling out a Digital Home Key feature within Samsung Wallet, allowing users to unlock compatible smart locks by tapping or approaching their door.
– The feature is powered by the new Aliro smart home standard, which uses NFC for tap-to-unlock and supports UWB for hands-free unlocking.
– Digital Home Key is launching in select regions this month, with UWB support scheduled to begin in April.
– Currently, few locks support Aliro, but the Aqara U400 lock is identified as “Aliro-ready” and may be the first to work with the feature.
– To use the feature, users need a compatible smart lock set up via SmartThings and a supported Samsung Galaxy smartphone with both NFC and UWB capabilities.
Imagine unlocking your front door simply by walking up to it, your phone securely tucked away in your pocket or bag. This vision is now a reality for Samsung smartphone users with the launch of Digital Home Key, a new feature integrated directly into the Samsung Wallet app. Powered by the recently finalized Aliro smart home standard, this technology promises to make physical keys a thing of the past, offering both tap-to-unlock and hands-free access.
The journey to this launch has seen some delays. Samsung initially previewed the Digital Home Key concept back in 2024, targeting a 2025 release. The holdup was tied to the development of the underlying Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) Aliro protocol, which only became available this past February. This universal standard is designed to let any compatible smartphone work with supported smart locks. It utilizes near-field communication (NFC) for when you want to tap your phone to the lock, and also supports ultra-wideband (UWB) technology. The UWB capability is particularly innovative, enabling automatic, hands-free unlocking as you approach your door without any need to interact with your device.
Availability is starting now, with the feature rolling out to Samsung phones in select regions this month. The UWB functionality for proximity unlocking is scheduled to follow in April. On the hardware side, adoption is just beginning. While few locks currently support the new Aliro standard, Aqara has announced its U400 smart lock is “Aliro-ready,” positioning it to likely be among the first compatible with Samsung’s system. Notably, this same lock already works with Apple’s competing Home Key platform.
Setting up a Digital Home Key requires a few specific components. Users must first install a compatible Aliro-ready smart lock and configure it through Samsung’s SmartThings platform using the Matter protocol. Furthermore, not every Samsung phone will support the full range of features. Only select Galaxy models, including the Galaxy Z Fold 4 and later and the Galaxy S22 Ultra and later, are equipped with both the necessary NFC and UWB hardware. A complete list of supported devices is available on Samsung’s official website.
In a related update for travelers, Samsung also revealed that users can now add American Airlines boarding passes to their Samsung Wallet, further consolidating essential digital items in one convenient location.
(Source: The Verge)
