A Stroke Of Genius - Kwikset Smartkey Defeat With No Damage

Yesterday we attended to a client for whom we had previously rekeyed their new home about 8 weeks ago, who had accidentally locked themselves out.

The husband and wife had traveled out of state for a vacation and one of the spouses had inadvertently left their spare key inside the house, while the other spouse with the key was still interstate.

The types of locks they have on their doors are Kwikset Smartkey designer series locks similar to the style presented in the picture here.

Typically, many locksmiths would choose to drill and destroy a Kwikset Smartkey lock because typically they can be somewhat difficult to manipulate without causing unrepairable damage.

Many doors that use Kwikset Smartkey locks, tend to have a separate entry set from a deadbolt lock. Often defeating an entry set, without damage is painlessly simple and there are methods to bypass a Kwikset Smartkey deadbolt that are considered "outside the box". We deliberately choose NOT to share these unique bypass methods for fear of those details getting into the wrong hands.

Our customer being out of state, while their spouse was on their way home without a copy of their Kwikset Smartkey operating key, contacted me to attend the site and unlock the door on behalf of their spouse. When the spouse arrived at the airport they contacted me to arrange a suitable time.

Being as cold as it is presently, I did not want to keep the customer waiting for long while I attempted to manipulate the lock cylinder. I did not want to drill and destroy the lock, because getting a replacement on such short notice was not possible, so I asked the spouse interstate to snap a picture of their operating key and text it to me.

Upon receiving the image, I attended the home just prior (about 15 minutes) before the spouse arrived home from the airport. I grabbed the appropriate Kwikset key blank and set about making a copy of their operating key with my handheld impressioning file.

Having a clear image from which to determine the cuts of the key proved the stroke of genius in this move, because I was able to recreate the operating key in about 10 minutes and it operated flawlessly in the deadbolt (pictured above). This allowed me to unlock their door without any damage nor signs of forced or manipulated entry. The clients existing key (inside the house) still worked like new and we saved the inconvenience of trying to replace a special order lock product.

NOW - Obviously you can see a security issue here that can be distressing. If someone has enough time to take a picture of your house key, potentially they could simply contact a locksmith who could also provide the same service and make a copy of the key. Ethically and morally many locksmiths would not do this, unless they knew the customer and they could prove they belong to the address in question. But not everyone lives by a code of ethics.

A few years ago we wrote an article that talked about creating key duplicates using the credit cards you often get on the mail from promoters.

See Credit Cards Used To Duplicate Keys

Another article we wrote about 5 years ago talked about a service created by some enterprising engineers in California called Shloosl, See the link

Here is an article from about 10 years ago that discusses the ease in creating a copy of your key by picture..... Key Photograph Key Cutting


Simply put, there is only 1 way to prevent unauthorised key duplication. Using a High-Security Restricted Key System. Systems that require your signature authorization in advance of origination. There are many systems available across the world in today's market. Some better than others. We choose to offer the Bilock Extreme Security restricted key system.

Lockwood 7444 Keyed Pocket Door Lock And Range To Be Discontinued By Us

After careful consideration, we have decided to discontinue selling this product.

We have been selling this product for 9 years and due to rising costs and reducing sales (even being significantly cheaper than competitors), we have decided to discontinue representing this type of pocket door lock in North America.

In the last 9 years we have sold thousands of this product with repeat customers ordering again and again to satisfy the needs of their clients.

We will sell our remaining inventory (about 18 keyed units and 10 privacy sets and 10 passage sets) at a fire sale discount until no more product remains.

We expect to change the sales page with the new discounted price in the next few days.

Thank you all for your continued interest in this fabulous product and we hope you can still purchase it in future from other providers.

Strikemaster II To The Rescue - Again

 This week, we were called to another Home Advisor door repair project for a client who experienced door frame failure.

The image to the right here, shows the Strikemaster II product installed to repair the busted door frame. This particular installation required me to check the entire 5' strike plate into the existing frame after removing the weather stripping.

The Strikemaster II used here is NOT the Strikemaster II Pro, which is the updated product. We used the older product because the door, on a house built in the 1960's, was a very tight fit in its opening and the clearance between the door and frame when closed was about 1/16th". The typical gap around the edges of a door within it's frame should be 1/8th". This allows for weathering or frame movement if the house settles.

The second image shows the trim moulding removed. We had some difficulty sourcing replacement moulding because the width of the required moulding was 1-3/4" wide. That size hasnt been produced since at least 1970. All door trim moulding found today is a minimum 2" wide. We managed to source a supplier who could rip a new piece of moulding to enable to install it to the 1-3/4" frame and allow for the trim to neatly fit inside the brick clad wall, without having to damage the existing clad brick.








And the final image shows the new moulding reattached to the frame, ready for painting.

Being that the average door and frame replacement cost in our local region is ~$1100 - $1500 commonly, using a Strikemaster II or the newer Strikemaster II Pro can cut repair costs and time down to less than $300 total.

UFO3 - New Improved High Security Lock For Vans and Cargo Vehicles

We have been the North American distributors for the broad range of Meroni products for about 8 years now and recently aligned with another distributor based in Minnesota who is distributing the fabulous UFO range of high-security locks for delivery vans, tradespeople vans, trucks among other applications. The new distributor is in  Minnesota will cater primarily to the automotive sector with this product line. We will continue to support them with key duplication and creation requests.

You can see our articles already written about the UFO range by Meroni by clicking here

The above video shows the installation steps for the newest model the UFO3.

The straightforward installation procedure can be handled easily by a trained technician or almost anybody, provided they have the correct tools and follow the guidelines in the instructions.

There is another new product, recently developed with Meroni in Europe aimed at UFO range of high-security automotive locking products that is a Cloud-Controlled access control system designed for fleet operators to enable simple access control for their fleets of deliver and transportation vehicles.

The UFO Cloud is a system that uses the SHA256 Encrypted Communication Protocol based on the design developed by the NSA.

The practicality of the UFO Cloud, transforms mechanical keyed products into a virtual keychain using a cellphone app and dedicated dashboard.

For further details on the UFO Cloud and the wide range of UFO products by Meroni, check the source below.

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