There are some smart home devices that sound better than they actually turn out to be. Those where the features and ideas are there - and even exciting - but in reality, it's actually quicker to do it the old-fashioned way rather than opening an app and using your phone.

Smart locks can definitely fall into that category. In principle, they are a great idea. Being able to unlock your door with your phone and not having to bring a physical key out? Happy days. The problem of course is that if Wi-Fi goes down or the technology stops working for whatever reason, you could find yourself a little stuck. And not just stuck, but stuck outside. Or inside, for that matter.

The Ultion Nuki Smart Lock is a little different though. It's packed with features, has the backup of a physical key as well as app control, a keypad and a fob, and it's actually, well, smart. It's been designed specifically for UK homes too, while the Nuki Smart Lock 3.0 is available for EU homes offering many of the same features. Here's our review.

Nuki Smart Lock
Nuki Smart Lock 3.0

There are a lot of great things about the Ultion Nuki Smart Lock. It offers a simple and elegant design, a superb feature set, and it has a very easy, fuss-free installation that doesn't ruin your door. Some issues we encountered mean consideration should be made if you don't have a pull knob to open your door, or if you only have one door in and out of your home. Otherwise, if you're after a smart lock with all the bells and whistles, you're looking at it.

Pros
  • Simple and elegant design
  • Great feature set
  • Easy installation
Cons
  • Quite noisy mechanism
  • Some lag
  • Door design is crucial

Design

  • Plastic design with LED button
  • Physical turning mechanism
  • White

One of the most appealing elements of the Ultion Nuki Smart Lock is its design. From the outside of your door, you would never know there was a smart lock on the other side.

It sits on the inside of your door and although it will look better on some doors than others, it's a very inoffensive design that will blend with most interiors. You'll find a white square plastic box with a physical circular turning element on top which features a button and LED light. In the EU, the Nuki Lock 3.0 Pro also has an additional stainless steel element and therefore looks a touch more premium.

Nuki Smart Lock - 10

On the underside of the device is where you'll find a couple of clips, allowing you to remove the device and replace the batteries inside, while the turning element at the top allows you to open your door without using the smart elements at all, should you want to.

The push button within the circular element of the Ultion Nuki Smart Lock can be programmed to perform various actions. For example, we programmed ours to open our door when pushed once, and lock it when pushed twice.

It's a simple design overall, but an effective one. It looked great on our front door and while it isn't as clean looking as not having a smart lock at all, you of course don't get all its features without it, so it's not a huge compromise.

Nuki Smart Lock - 2

The only thing we will note on the design front is that it is quite noisy - and it takes a few seconds to lock and unlock the door - so you'll hear the mechanism within the door whirring away for a few seconds before your door is locked or unlocked.

Easy installation

  • Can be retrofitted
  • 4x AA batteries required
  • No drilling

Nuki's smart lock is designed to be installed yourself and it doesn't require any drilling or screws - so long as your door is compatible. It's a very quick installation process that takes a matter of minutes and you get a step-by-step guide in the Nuki app. For those in the UK, you'll need the Ultion Nuki Smart Lock specifically as this is the only one compatible with UK doors. For those in the EU, the Nuki Smart Lock 3.0 is the one you'll want.

The Nuki Smart Lock is compatible with horizontally and vertically-orientated keyways, and it's designed to be strong enough to operate multi-point locks too. It also shouldn't matter how many turns your door has either, the Nuki Smart Lock is designed to work with them all.

Nuki Smart Lock - 1

There's an installation checker on the Nuki website that will allow you to check whether your door is compatible with the Smart Lock 3.0. For those in the UK, you can see if your door is compatible by visiting the Ultion website.

In order to control the Ultion Nuki Smart Lock or Nuki Smart Lock 3.0 remotely - or when you aren't within Wi-Fi or Bluetooth range - you'll need to plug a bridge device into a power socket near your Wi-Fi router, so that's worth keeping in mind.

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Aside from this though, a replacement plastic pull tab section slots onto the pre-existing drill holes on your door and the main smart lock device is attached on top. There are a couple of different options in the box depending on the door you have so most scenarios are covered.

Solid feature set

  • Auto Unlock
  • Keypad, Fob, Smartphone, Smartwatch, App unlocking options
  • Alexa, Google Assistant, HomeKit compatibility
  • Activity log

Both the Ultion Nuki Smart Lock and Nuki Smart Lock 3.0 have a plethora of features on board. They don't just look pretty and offer easy installation, but they bring the goods too. You can even get a fob and a keypad (available separately) that can be linked up to the main device allow for even more ways to open your door.

The keypad is great - we stuck this to our letter box, which sits on the wall on the front of the house so the keypad was accessible but not immediately obvious if you approached the house. It's perfect for granting access to your home on a short term basis, for a dog walker or a cleaner perhaps. The fob is useful too. Like the button on the Nuki Smart Lock itself, you can program the button on the fob, such as double press to unlock and single press to lock.

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In reality though, you actually need neither. There's a feature called Auto Unlock that uses your smartphone or smartwatch's (of which most are supported) location to automatically unlock your door. You simply have to set a boundary within the Nuki app, so it knows the distance at which you want this feature to kick in. This worked brilliantly in our experience.

Once it senses your location within that perimeter, it monitors you and as you get closer and approach your door, it will unlock. You'll get a notification when you hit the perimeter to ask if you want to unlock your door too, which is useful if you're close to home but you aren't going home just yet, for example.

There was only the odd occasion where the door wasn't unlocking as we stepped onto our doorstep, otherwise we could simply push the door and it would open, which was very handy when we had lots of bags in our hands.

Nuki Smart Lock - 13

Along with setting the perimeter for the Auto Unlock feature in the app, there are a number of other features, such as assigning secure access permissions using the app and sharing digital keys, which again is handy for the times you want to give someone access to your house without giving them permanent access. For example, you could grant the dog walker permission to access your home between 1pm and 3pm every Friday, or the babysitter access from 8pm on a specific date.

You can also monitor who has come and gone through something called the Activity Log. This log shows you any family members you have given access to your home, as well as any other activity that has taken place on the door. It lists how your door was opened, who by and with what method, whether manual, sensor or button, etc.

Video doorbells offer a similar catalogue of the comings and goings of your front door, and they do so in aesthetically pleasing way. The Nuki app is a little basic, but the activity log does exactly the job it sets out to do. It's plain and simple, but that's not to say it's not effective.

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As you might expect, you can also unlock your door using the Nuki app by swiping across and confirming you want to open the door. Like the Activity log, this is pretty no frills in terms of design, but it does the job, even if with a little lag.

Performance and considerations

  • Good features
  • Some lag
  • Requires pull knob

All the features of the Ultion Nuki Smart Lock worked very well in our experience, and the company has seemingly covered all bases. At least, we can't think of another way we would want to unlock our door that Nuki hasn't provided in this system, anyway. We'd like the app to be a little more exciting in terms of design and the unlocking and locking mechanism to be a little quieter and faster, but otherwise, its overall delivery is brilliant.

Something worth mentioning, however, is that we tested an early model of the Ultion Nuki Smart Lock and one element of the mechanism inside snapped during our time with it. The element that snapped was the part that connected the turning mechanism to the lock itself.

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This resulted in us being unable to open the door from the inside, as we weren't able to access the physical turning section of the Nuki, and the button didn't work either. The only way to open the door was to turn the key, the old-fashioned way, from the outside.

However, this is an important difference between the UK and EU models. Only the UK-focused Ultion Nuki Smart Lock has a physical key system as part of it, and therefore it's also the only one with a physical cylinder too. If there is no physical cylinder then we'd assume any risk of this malfunction occuring would be avoided - though it has to be said, we do like still having the option of a physical key.

In terms of our faulty unit, the replacement part was sent out quickly and it was very quick to change and fix, but if you live in a house or flat with only one access point and this happens, you would ultimately be trapped. As we have no side access to our house, we had to get someone to come and access the lock from the front with the key.

While our review sample was an early production model, such a malfunction is obviously still a concern. That's why we are happy to hear that Ultion has since made the element that snapped stronger by using a tougher metal, which should hopefully preventing this issue happening again.

There are further steps you can take to prevent this happening too. Ultion raised our lack of a pull knob on the back of our door as an issue, as it means we were using the bottom of the Nuki Smart Lock to open the door once it was unlocked. The plastic framing isn't designed for this - nor is it really strong enough for heavy doors - and by pulling on it, we were told it would have put extra pressure on the bridging element inside the lock.

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That means that for all of the Ultion Nuki Smart Lock's fantastic features - most of which are executed brilliantly - and its upgraded construction, buyers in the UK with doors that don't have a pull knob on the inside should consider installing one, just in case. EU users should be in the clear - but should be prepared to go entirely keyless too.

Verdict

There are a lot of great things about the Ultion Nuki Smart Lock. It offers a simple and elegant design, a superb feature set, including compatibility with Alexa, Google Assistant and HomeKit, and it has a very easy, fuss-free installation that doesn't ruin your door.

It's reasonable in terms of price, too, given the features on offer, and while the app could be a bit more exciting, the mechanism could be quieter and the lag could be reduced, it's a solid offering when it comes to smart locks. We especially loved the Auto Unlock feature and the fact that you can still use a physical key.

For peace of mind, UK buyers should consider installing a separate pull knob for opening your door from the inside - plus it is also worthwhile considering the shortfalls of smart locks in general if you only have one door in and out of your home. Otherwise, if you're after a smart lock with all the bells and whistles, you're looking right at it.