The Noke padlock turns your smartphone into a wireless key

There will probably never be such a thing as “the perfect” lock, but a new Bluetooth padlock seems to come pretty close. Noke is a padlock that, once paired with your iOS or Android device, automatically unlocks when it senses you’re near. Although we know about devices like the August smart lock for doors, Fuz Designs, the makers of the Noke, claim that its device is the first Bluetooth padlock.

Meet Noke, a water-resistant, connected padlock that doesn’t need a physical key to be unlocked — the clue is in the name, which is pronounced ‘no-key.’ Instead it uses Bluetooth connectivity as the unlocking mechanism, triggered when your smartphone is nearby. Now we’ve seen a cavalcade of Bluetooth-connected locks pushing their way into the frame in recent years with their promise of keyless convenience, powered by the rise of less thirsty flavours of Bluetooth that can run for longer on battery power. A few that spring to mind include smart bike lock, Lock8, which won last year’s Disrupt Europe battlefield competition in Berlin with its grand plan to build a peer-to-peer bike sharing/renting community based on the lock owner’s ability to provision temporary digital keys. There’s also Bitlock, another smart bike lock which packs a mapping and tracking feature. And then there are myriad smart locks designed for doors in or on your home, including Lockitron, Kevo, Goji and Genie to name a few.