A smart-lock solution arrives for the Euro-standard mortice lock

Article – French language / Langue Française

La Poste vend aussi des serrures connectées (The Post Office also sells smart locks) | Le Figaro (France)

From the horse’s mouth

La Poste

PostAccess Product Page

Press Release

Video (Click to play – French language)

My Comments

At the moment, most smart-lock solutions are catering towards the “bore-through” cylindrical deadbolt that is common in the USA and some other countries.

But there is an established “open-frame” cylinder-mortice-lock platform, known as the “Euro-profile” platform, which has a strong presence “across the board” in most of Britain and Europe and has some presence in Oceania. This is based around a single-piece module that houses the key cylinder and / or a thumb-turn which slides in to a mortice lock or multi-bolt locking system already installed in to a door. This platform hasn’t been served by this technology until now.

La Poste, the French post-office, have started marketing a smart-lock kit as part of their foray in to the connected-home scene. This is based around a “swap-in” module that replaces the cylinder module or cylinder / thumbturn module that is part of a European-standard mortice lock or multi-point locking system and, like some of the other smart locks, works with a fob or your Bluetooth-linked smartphone dependent on the package.

Here, the hardware based around a high-security outside cylinder module which “drives” the lock’s bolt and provides access using a traditional key. This interlinks with an inside module that has a thumbturn along with the electronics including the Bluetooth Smart radio subsystem that is part of the PostAccess system. It also has an integrated door-alarm which can be set up to work as a simple “buzzer alarm” that sounds when someone opens the door, or it can simply be set to sound if someone attempts to force the door open.

It also works with an NFC card reader that looks like a wireless doorbell and comes with the PostAccess Sérénité package. This card reader actually links with the lock using Bluetooth Smart technologies so it can read NFC cards, badges or wristbands and use these as keys.

People who buy the PostAccess Services Connectée package also receive a Wi-Fi – Bluetooth bridge that links the lock to your home network, This allows for you to manage your PostAccess lock remotely through a Web portal that is set up by La Poste in France. The standards around the online service encompass a high-security data transfer setup between the PostAccess smart lock and the servers which are located in France.

What I like of this smart lock is that it is the first product of its kind to work with the Euro-profile cylinder-mortice-lock platform purely on a retrofit basis in a manner that suits a “screwdriver expert”. As well, it is the first product of its type to be a hub for two peripheral devices i.e. the NFC card reader and a home-network bridge while working with smartphones for authentication and management purposes.

Like other early entrants in to the network-based connected-home or “Internet Of Things” idea, it will show the problems and bugs associated with these devices. This is where you rely on particular vendor-supplied equipment, smartphone apps and services to get the full benefit from them and they don’t work on an “open-frame” platform. To approach this better, the manufacturers would need to make the PostAccess smart lock software-upgradeable to newer “open-platform” standards

La Poste could be seeing this as a way to get their foot in the door to the connected home rather than trying to run their own “n-box” triple-play Internet service in to a highly-competitive Internet-service market. They could take this further with other products of the connected-home class and / or build out their Services Connectée package for remote home management.

To make the “smart-lock” idea work, there has to be an emphasis on seeing more products of this class appear on all of the commonly-used form-factors that the typical door lock appears in. As well, there has to be the ability to see the connected-home “Internet-Of-Things” concept mature on a level playing field along with encouraging a distinct role for these devices in the connected home.

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