New Home Door Locks Can Be Controlled Online

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(Schlage)

What if locking the front door of your home while you're away were as easy as hopping on the Internet?

At the CEDIA Expo in Denver this week, Ingersoll-Rand Co.'s Schlage unit is showing off door locks that can be wirelessly set or opened via the Internet, from a mobile phone or a computer.

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The battery-operated locks have keypads that are locked and unlocked with 4-digit access codes (or old-fashioned keys, as a backup). Users who forget to lock a door and want to enter their code remotely can hop onto a Web portal or an application added to their mobile phones. These password-protected portals also let people change, activate or disable the codes.

The company says the wireless signals sent to the locks are encrypted.

A Schlage kit that includes the lock and the wireless bridge to communicate with the locks sells for $299, plus there's a $13 monthly fee to use the applications that let the locks be controlled remotely. The system, which Schlage bills as the first of its kind, will be available in late October.

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