Smart locks are an excellent idea: simply use your smartphone to unlock your door rather than having to fumble around with your keys. However, current smart lock offerings aren’t at a price range that most people would consider, such as the $250 August smart lock that made its way to the Apple Store. Sesame, on the other hand, promises to do exactly the same thing for the far more reasonable price of $100 and its rapidly approaching its funding goal in Kickstarter to help bring itself to market.
It’s safe to say that the $250 August smart lock is off to a good start, if for no other reason than it’s already landed a coveted spot on Apple Store shelves. But consumers aren’t exactly racing to ditch their keys in favor of unlocking the front door with a smartphone, so there’s still plenty of room for other companies to try their hand. Today we’re getting a look at one of those alternative: it’s called Sesame. And if nothing else, it aggressively undercuts August on price. Sesame follows the same basic idea as August and other smart locks. You attach it to the lock on the inside of your door and, when in range, pull out your smartphone to quickly get inside. There’s also an accelerometer inside that can open up when it detects a unique knock pattern, a convenient (though not terribly safe) entry method. Sesame’s creators claim their product (now on Kickstarter aiming for a funding goal of $100,000) is superior to August in numerous ways. First, the setup process is basically instant. Whereas August comes with an installation kit, Sesame is attached to your existing deadbolt using a strip of 3M adhesive — and that’s it. Candy House, the company behind Sesame, says that a patent-pending, self-adjusting design allows the smart lock to adapt to nearly any deadbolt you’d find in the US.
