Posted on Sunday, 8th November 2015 by Michael
48 hours with the Quick Lock by Safe Tech
I never did a kick starter before but I was looking for a low-cost solution for a smart lock for my door to my armory in the house. Up to this point, my only experience has been with Schlage but at 179.00 dollars per lock it adds up. So I decided at a cost of 79.00 I would take a chance on the Quick lock: https://www.thequicklock.com/.
The early investor deal gave you two RFID cards and two RFID keychains. You are also able to download the smartphone app for free. The company held true to their ship dates and by the end of October I had my lock. Though they said they would send tracking I never received any tracking info it just showed up on my door one day.
The lock itself did not feel as secure as the Schlage lock and the front button felt loose / flimsy. I personally would not use this lock on my front door, as I do not think it will hold up against an attack, do to not fully reading the directions on installation I had to defeat the security of this lock and was able to in a few minutes. With that being said, it is great for an interior door to keep kids and guests out.
The directions to install are confusing as the pictures on the site show the orientation of the lock in the opposite direction of what the directions have it. Following the images of the site, I found the lock would not fit my door nor would the wire reach. Following the directions and installing it in a direction that seems to be upside down made the installation simple.
Once installation is complete I strongly suggest that the bolt freely turns when you turn the nobs. I found if the middle pin is not lined up perfectly or if you over tighten the screw plates it will cause friction-causing issues with turning the nobs to open the lock, I will come back to this issue later in the write up. I would also note at this point to make sure you read all the directions before doing anything else including shutting the door. I made the mistake of shutting the door before inserting the batteries; it was an honest mistake, as I had to reach around the door to grab the batteries I laid on the floor.
Well, lesson learned the door fails locked with no power unless you set the defaults in the lock before shutting the door. Now I have officially locked myself out of the armory and cannot access the lock to unlock it. However, the lock has a short bolt and it does not seem to go deep into the doorjamb hole. I was able to use a tension wrench to slide in between the lock and door to pull the bolt back manually and hence bypassing the locks security. I corrected this with adding a shim to the doorjamb. Note this was not possible with the standard key lock I had on the door as I tried to bypass that lock in the past with the same method.
Now that I had access to the room back and the door open I went into the room to install the batteries and test the ability to open it from the inside in the event some one was locked in the room they could get out since the lock has a auto lock option. Wanted to make sure that if one of my kids went inside before the door relocked they could get out. Boy I was surprised when I could not get out of the room. This is why I mentioned earlier about making sure that everything is assembled correctly and that there is no friction. Lets just say I locked myself in the room. I will chalk this up in partial to user error. Thankfully I had a screwdriver in my gun kit and was able to take the lock off. Once I had the lock off I double checked everything several times before putting it back together verifying everything was fully working and there were no other issues.
Next it was time to sync my phone and the app to the lock. I got to say this is the most unsecure solution as far as the app goes. This is not taking into consideration all the bugs in the app as well. The app allows multiple users but only one password. Meaning my wife and I have both have our own username for the logs but we share the same password. I noticed this when I tried changing the password on my wife phone and it locked me out on my phone. Also the app displays the password in clear text and does not require you to enter a password to access the app. So anyone that picks up your phone can see your password and access the device. I have not done any further pen testing of the application, though I do plan to do a full test and dissect the app further for further vulnerabilities. The next issue with the app is the Bluetooth is very flaky and times out quickly making it nearly impossible to access the apps settings such as changing the password, lock name or access logs. I found it lasts longer on my wife’s Samsung s6 vs. my s5. You also cannot export the logs off the device for review. The next issues with the application at the current time is you basically have to pair the devices each time by pressing the front button on the lock and then selecting your lock and the command you want. The final issue is the password has to be a min of 8 characters and by the way it only accepts up to 8 characters. I also did not see any account time out / lock out feature so you can basically create brute force tool and attack the lock password function, hint the username is in the logs grab that when you grab the password for future access if the password changes.
Now let's talk about the programing of the RFID cards. I am going to assume all the cards that the company shipped with my lock though it does not say anywhere have already been configured as allowed on my lock. I say this as each one without me doing anything allowed me to lock and unlock the lock. Thanks for saving me some time but it is hard to tell if you successfully programmed and or removed a card from the system. It is not very straightforward with the displays or responses you get from the lock.
I see on the site mention of NFC and Zwave but do not really see the ability in the lock to use these technologies. It would be great to add the lock to my zwave network to use my own application to access the lock and logs. The directions say there is a zwave button and I see the pinhole for it but I cannot get info from the project team if zwave is currently in these locks. I plan to double-check this later this week to see if there is anything under that pinhole.
So in summary this is a great lock at the intro price of 79.00 for those that want a smart lock for interior use. However at the commercial cost I suggest spending 30.00 more for an Schlage lock. I also strongly suggest accept for using the mobile app to change your locks default password of 12345678 that you do not keep the app on your phone until they improve the security of the application. I would like to see a web ui or full zwave control added at some point for the price to make it comparable in features to Schlage and other smart locks. This would allow for easier control and ability to access the logs easier.
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