Expert's Rating
Pros
- Exterior component is sturdy and compact
- Outstanding fingerprint reader
- Very inexpensive
Cons
- Interior escutcheon feels flimsy and is boring to look at
- Absence of wireless connectivity means no smart home integration
- Fingerprint registration means keeping an offline list
Our Verdict
This $80 lock won’t work with your phone—or your smart home system—but it is a sturdy and secure way to add PIN-, fingerprint-, or key-controlled access to your entry doors.
Price When Reviewed
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Best Pricing Today
Best Prices Today: Brinks Electronic Fingerprint/Keypad Deadbolt with Pro-Guard
Brinks is probably the biggest name in the world of armored cars, so it stands to reason the company should be trustworthy enough to protect the door to your house, right? Well, don’t get too excited just yet: The Brinks Electronic Fingerprint/Keypad Deadbolt with Pro-Guard (whew!) door lock proudly bears the Brinks logo, but Hampton Products is the actual manufacturer.
Hampton produces an array of locks and door hardware products that it markets under various brand names. No shade on Hampton, of course, but consumers should know who’s behind the gear they buy.
If you don’t need true smart features, the Brinks Electronic Fingerprint/Keypad Deadbolt with Pro-Guard is a capable lock at a decent price.
Specifications and details
This lock is a straightforward product, but it straddles the line between commercial and residential applications. It’s not formally certified, but Hampton says the lock meets the commercial-class ANSI Grade 3 standards—the lowest ANSI commercial certification available for entry locks—and that “they do test to the same exact standards in the same exact methods.” The lock does not carry a BHMA certification (which is more typical for residential use). If you’d like to know more about ANSI and BHMA certification, you can read all about it at the preceding link.
Mounting the fingerprint reader on top of the lock makes it much easier to register and later use fingerprints to unlock the door.
Hampton Products
Either way, the Pro-Guard tag in the product name is Hampton’s moniker for advanced security features in its Brinks hardware, including a steel deadbolt, pick- and drill-resistant pins, and an “anti-pry shield.” But it’s critical to note that while the device has a keypad and fingerprint reader, it is not a smart lock and has no wireless capabilities. That means that all lock programming and management must be done locally, via the keypad, which I’ll get to in detail in a bit.
First, the hardware. Here, the lock also straddles commercial and residential applications without quite landing in either world. The relatively compact exterior escutcheon is available in three finishes (matte black, satin nickel, and Tuscan bronze) and features a curving design with scalloped edges that would feel right at home on most front doors.
The Brinks Electronic Fingerprint/Keypad Deadbolt runs on four AA batteries housed in its interior escutcheon.
Christopher Null/Foundry
The large, physical numeric keypad buttons—and even larger lock button—however, detract from the otherwise upscale appearance. The white plastic chicklets look as though they’d be better suited to an airport than on a cul-de-sac. A fingerprint reader is located on the top of the escutcheon, positioned at a mostly horizontal angle, which makes it much more convenient to access than vertically positioned readers. Lastly, the lock can be opened with a physical. There is no port for emergency power if the lock’s batteries—four AA cells, not included—fail. Hampton says fresh batteries should last for up to two years with normal use. That shouldn’t be difficult to achieve, considering there are no power-sucking radios onboard.
In contrast, the interior escutcheon is uninspired, a plasticky black brick with nothing much to distinguish it aside from a slim thumbturn. A tiny LED underneath the thumbturn turns green for a few seconds when the lock is opened and red when it is closed.
Setup and installation
Installation is straightforward, with only a tiny departure from the usual smart lock format. While the exterior escutcheon is connected to a thin plate on the inside of the door, it does so with three bolts instead of the usual two, with the bolts arranged in a triangle. The extra support does seem to help keep the lock in place better than most; in my testing, at least, it never listed throughout days of use.
A single power cable connects from the exterior escutcheon to the interior escutcheon, which is connected to the frame with three tiny screws. Note that one of these screws is recessed inside a deep, narrow channel. I had to dig out a small, thin Philips screwdriver to get it seated because of its difficult placement.
Three bolts secure the Brinks Electronic Fingerprint/Keypad Deadbolt with Pro-Guard’s interior and exterior escutcheons, which helps to ensure the lock doesn’t list to one side or the other over time.
Christopher Null/Foundry
Once installed, it’s time to start setting up access. Again, this lock has no traditional smart features, so all settings need to be made by entering a series of codes into the keypad. That includes everything from setting up PINs, enrolling fingerprints, and changing operational parameters like auto-locking. The lock can store 50 fingerprints, 50 PINs, and 50 additional single-use codes.
Because the lock has no clock or connection to an external one, all PINs are all-or-nothing affairs. One-time-use codes, however, are automatically deleted either after one use or after 72 hours of their creation. Additional settings configurable through the keypad include auto-lock (0 to 99 seconds), vacation mode (which disables all PINs except the master code), and the ability to mute system sounds. A wrong-entry protection feature disables the system for 1 minute following 5 incorrect PINs or fingerprint scans. This function cannot be changed or disabled.
The lock’s keypad isn’t the most attractive design we’ve seen in modern locks, but the buttons are backlit and they perform well.
Christopher Null/Foundry
To give you a sense of what working with the keypad is like, enrolling a PIN looks like this: Hold down the lock button for 3 seconds, enter the master code, press the lock button, press 3, press 1, enter the new PIN, press the lock button, enter the new PIN again, and then press the lock button one more time. It’s not necessarily complicated, but it does take time and requires significant attention to detail while following the broadsheet user manual (which is also available online, though it’s not the easiest document to read in PDF format).
Enrolling fingerprints takes a similar approach, with one major twist of a hassle: Each fingerprint must be assigned to a fingerprint slot (1 to 50), and it’s up to you to remember whose fingerprint is assigned to each slot. I’d suggest creating a log, because should you need to delete a fingerprint down the road, you can do so only by providing the relevant slot number. Alternatively, you’ll need to delete all the fingerprints en masse and start over from scratch.
Should you buy a Brinks Electronic Fingerprint/Keypad Deadbolt with Pro-Guard?
The good news is that, in use, the lock works exceptionally well. The buttons might be ugly, but they’re large enough and set far enough apart to tap without making mistakes, and the illumination is bright enough to easily see at night. The fingerprint reader works perfectly, and it never missed a single scan during my testing. Since there’s no logging or remote access features, there isn’t much else to test. But what the lock does, it does well.
Bottom line: If you don’t need true smart features, the Brinks Electronic Fingerprint/Keypad Deadbolt with Pro-Guard is a capable lock at a decent price that can free you from the tyranny of keys—as long as you understand what you’re getting.
Best Prices Today: Brinks Electronic Fingerprint/Keypad Deadbolt with Pro-Guard
Author: Christopher Null, Contributor, PCWorld
Christopher Null is an award-winning technology journalist with more than 25 years of experience writing about and reviewing consumer and business tech products. Previously, he served as Executive Editor for PC Computing magazine and was the founder and Editor in Chief of Mobile magazine, the first print publication focused exclusively on mobile tech. In addition to covering a wide range of smart home gear for TechHive, he is a frequent contributor to Wired, This Old House, and AAA’s Via Magazine.