Breaking News: Ring Acquired By Amazon

Ring, the IoT (Internet of Things) company who manufacture a unique doorbell product in the Smart category of home furnishings products space, have announced their acquisition by Amazon.

Amazon continue to diversify their portfolio of companies, in attempt to upgrade their delivery services, with the purchase of Ring. Amazon developed a system recently called Amazon Key to help with the delivery of orders to customers without leaving packages outside homes or offices.

We recently wrote an article about Ring and their relationship with Skybell, the inventor of the technology and holder of integral patents that form the basics of the technology. The article describes a patent infringement lawsuit filed by Skybell, that now increases the interest in this story with this news about Amazon's takeover.

We have written a few articles articles over the last 10 years, informing about various peepholes and camera products aimed at the entry door markets. Some of these products have seen market success, but few on the level that Ring have achieved.

The IoT phenomenon has seen a great many new products enter the marketplace over the last few years and the physical and electronic security industry has become an area that many new producers are flooding the markets with all kinds of products, aimed at simplifying our lives.

A great many manufacturers are producing many varieties of digital electronic deadbolts and door locks, many of them battery powered and wireless. The functions and appearances of the various products vary considerably and likewise the quality.

Products like Yale, Lockitron, August, Kevo, to name a few have made deciding on the appropriate product for your home or office use, tricky indeed.

New wireless and battery powered products appear to be coming to market almost everyday lately. The Smart Lock industry is valued at $30 Billion + and it stands to reason that many providers are aiming for a slice of the pie.

Not to devalue the burgeoning industry, we have found that many of the available battery powered lock products suffer from power issues. Specifically the continuing requirement for end users to regularly replace batteries to keep their products in perfect continuous operation. We find that a great many customers, who installed the latest battery powered products, tend to replace batteries about twice in the early use of the products and then revert back to using the mechanical key portion (override) because they get tired of the constant need to change batteries, adding significantly to the cost to maintain their products, effectively diminishing the value of their expensive battery powered lock product. Mechanical and key operated products are largely maintenance free.

Other issues not considered before purchasing can include, door and frame weathering, where doors and frames move with the changes of season preventing their motor driven products from aligning correctly into the strike hole (frame), adverse weather conditions - hot or cold temperatures affect battery life of externally mounted products.

Many users enjoy the ability to continually operate their locks, manually (mechanically) by using the mechanical operating key.

Many locksmiths across the world continue to supply and install great quality hardware that stand the tests of time and continue to provide almost maintenance free operation.

I realize that many homeowners like the idea of keyless lock systems, but in reality a keyed lock system provides increased security over combination entry systems especially when you cannot control the number of people who may have shared or continue to share your door entry codes.

What type of product have you on your doors?

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Meroni Corporate Video

We are proud to continue representing the fabulous Serrature Meroni product lines to the North American market.

Above find Serrature Meroni's corporate video that shows the region where the corporate office is located, some of the factory and offices and some of the staff that work therein.

Serrature Meroni are one of Europe's leading manufacturers of specialty mechanical and electronic door lock products.

Products like their range of door closers


Unique Access Control products for doors in their electronic door lock range

European style Mortise Lock Cylinders

Ultra Nouveau Glass Door Hinges

Light Commercial Vehicle Lock Systems

Ergonomic and Especially Designed Mechanical Door Locks

Cupboard, Bureau, Cabinet and Furniture Mechanical Lock Systems

Unique OEM Mechanical Lock Systems

A few years ago, we were pleased to be among the initial group of visitors to their new factory located near the fabulous Lake Como, just outside Milan, Italy.

We continue to be the source for Meroni products in the North American markets. For experienced and understanding technical assistance in their product lines and availability, you are welcome to contact us for expert advice and support.

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New Pricing on Lockwood 7444 - Inflationary Pressure And Shipping Cost Increases Force Price Increase

We detest raising prices. Market conditions, especially manufacturer cost increases, import and customs duties increases, even outward shipping costs have all increased recently.

We have been forced to enact our first price increase in 3 years for this high-demand product.

We encourage you to purchase quickly, because this product sells out quickly.

Our last inventory SOLD OUT in 3 months.

The new cost as of today is US$146.75 plus shipping and handling.

We prefer to ship with UPS or USPS. Shipping options include overnight economy air, 3 Day select, Ground to the lower 48. International shipping is by USPS and averages 7-10 days.

In 8 years of recommending and selling this product, we have sold over 2000 units and are yet to have any reported failures. We maintain the manufacturers warranty of 12 months and offer a 30 day refund for unopened packages less a 5% restocking fee, for returns.

To purchase, simply click on the picture at the top left of this site.

Latch - $37 Million In Startup Funding Realizes Contract With AirBnB

An interesting article I read today has sparked my curiosity thanks to the well written, spelled and grammatically correct piece by it's author, Cliff Kuang.

The article tells a story about Luke Schoenfelder, a former Apple junior policy wonk working in their Washington DC office.

Apparently Luke decided, about 4 years ago, to get involved with a startup that was aiming to enter the already crowded IoT (Internet of Things)  Smart-Lock market with an especially new designed product by talented designer, Thomas Meyerhoffer called Latch.

Luke's upbringing from a large and old farm in Pennsylvania where he was reared, motivated him to become somewhat of an infrastructure geek, as he describes himself. The article goes on to tell about his early years and why he decided to get into the Smart-Lock business. You can read more about Luke and his involvement in Latch in the source article.

There are many options today in the current consumer marketplace, offering interesting and useful attributes that are self contained in Smart-Lock products. When people think about Smart-Locks, often they might know about the August Smart-Lock product, which has been heavily marketed over the last few years and especially exciting is the recent news about August being acquired by lock industry behemoth Assa-Abloy. You can read an article we wrote recently about that here.

Luke and Thomas teamed up to produce and market the product known as Latch. The video at the top of this page was made a little over two years ago and adequately shows the concept. Thomas Meyerhoffer is reknowned as another technology engineer who worked alongside Johnny Ive, the talented design engineer for Apple and influential in many Apple products, including the iPhone, Mac and Apple TV products.

What is Latch?

Manufacturers Prices Are Increasing Again - How Much Is Too Much?

Distributors and manufacturers continue to increase their prices, driving up talks about inflation in our economy.

We heard from one of our local distributors two days ago that a number of manufacturers (listed below) have decided to increase their prices as of February 2018.

February:
HES: 2/1/18

Securitron: 2/1/18

Adams Rite: 2/1/18

Air Louvers: 2/1/18

Keri Systems: 2/1/18

Major Mfg: 2/1/18

Belwith: 2/5/18

PDQ: 2/5/18

Keyed Pocket Door Lock - The Lockwood 7444 SPDP Flying Off The Shelves

Our largest selling product, The fabulous Lockwood 7444 Keyed Pocket Door Lock is flying off the shelves.

The simplicity in it's design and the ease of installation provide great security and access control to consumers desiring simple security and access control for their pocket or cavity doors.

We continue to see increasing numbers of units going to Canada and the east coast of USA and also discerning tastes across the west coast of the USA.

The installation animation below shows just how simple this product is, to install.



The lockset uses a standard 5 pin tumbler keyway, similar to Kwikset's standard keyway and therefore able to be keyed alike to Kwikset keys.

Originally designed for 1-3/8" thick doors, due to significant numbers of requests for use on 1-3/4" thick doors, the manufacturer decided to update the product line with a simple modification that allows the product to be used on 1-3/4" thick doors too.

We have sold roughly 2500 units over the last 4 years, with only 2 reported failures (both units replaced free of charge and overnight delivery).

Demand continues to be strong and our current inventory has dwindled to only 5 units left, as of this writing.

New inventory is expected in the next 4 weeks and unfortunately, due to the US$ currency dropping in value to foreign currencies, we will be forced to increase the cost.

Currently the product sells for US$128.00 plus US$25 shipping to the lower 48 via UPS Ground.
If you're siting on the fence, hoping to find it cheaper elsewhere, you wont. We do not offer the product through Amazon or eBay, only through our sites. We maintain the manufacturers warranty of 12 months and also offer a 30 day money back guarantee*

Purchase options

Also Available (on request)
Lockwood 7450 Passage Version
Lockwood 7410 Privacy (bathroom) Version
Lockwood 7400 Passage Latching Version

United States Secret Service Warns Of ATM "Jackpotting" Scam

Breaking News: Secret Service Warns Of ATM "Jackpotting" Scam...

The United States secret service warned yesterday that American banks need to be on high alert to ATM "jackpotting", a scam that has proliferated throughout Europe and Mexico, the last few years.



Essentially, "jackpotting" is known as a method that thieves use to contravene an ATM's security by opening the cabinet, putting in a laptop with a certain "skimming" program connected to the port and closing the machine. Then a "dove" comes by to operate the ATM, calls the first thief who activates the code remotely to allow the machine to empty it's cash dispenser, sometimes up to 23 notes per second.

The thieves often work in pairs, often dressed up like electronic repairmen, with sign written uniforms and vehicles, easily conning staff at ATM locations to let them in.

A large issue stems from the manufacturers of the ATM cabinets that are apparently using a uniform standard key lock on all cabinets. All locks are keyed alike, allowing for many different people to have access to the key and the locks.

About 25 years ago, I worked for a large metropolitan security patrol company that were contracted by banks to refill empty ATM's. The security control center monitoring station would send three (3) patrol cars to every ATM refill request. Each ATM was housed in a solid cabinet and controlled with two (2) separate mechanical dial combination locks, that also had lockable dials. One patrol officer would have the dial lock keys, one patrol officer would be given the combination to lock A and the other patrol officer would be given the combination to lock B.

The security was taken very seriously and using multiple people provided multiple required credentials and physical presence to complete the ATM refilling task.

These days, I see it often where a lone technician is often called to perform an ATM service at a bank or a convenience store or a bar etc. I think that it is especially important to have multiple people in attendance for security reasons, especially where hard currency is involved.

Often, locksmiths and safe technicians would maintain contracts with financial institutions to regularly attend the ATM site and change the dial combinations regularly, to prevent unauthorised knowledge of combinations to be reused over and over.

Perhaps a new opportunity for would be locksmiths and safe technicians exists to set up maintenance contracts with financial institutions to regularly alter the combination locks on ATM machines.

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Aegis Padlock DT - USB 3.0 Hard Drive With Security Keypad

This new product is an interesting idea.

The worry today, about the security of our online information and accessing that information, continues to be a very present concern for people of many kinds.

Securing your information can almost be as vital and important as securing your home or office, sometimes more.

Computers are progressively taking over all our lives and the quantity of IoT (Internet Of Things) products continues to increase across the market quite rapidly.

The Aegis Padlock DT - USB 3.0 Hard Drive uses an inbuilt digital keypad that requires the user be present to be able to access that drive.
While this may seem counter-productive to cloud based information storage systems, today storing our information in the cloud, securely while having continued access to it, without having to pay to access your own data, seems to be a thorn in some peoples sides.

Available in different storage capacities, this product may suit a consumer concerned with better security of their data, especially having a person be present to allow the drive to be accessed.

If this contributes to a more secure future for would be users of the computer it is connected to, then perhaps it will see traction in the wider market.

The source below will reveal the product page, cost and attributes.

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