On a recent Internet of Things podcast, we took a voicemail on our podcast hotline from Greg. He owns a Level Bolt smartlock that currently uses Bluetooth and hasn’t heard much about the previously announced Matter upgrade for his smart lock. Greg isn’t happy with the current Bluetooth implementation because the lock doesn’t respond too quickly.
This is definitely a fair question. After all, Matter officially rolled out back in October. However, since then we’ve seen different device makers approach the Matter transition at their own pace. And in their own ways.
Amazon initially rolled out Matter support on Wi-Fi only in December, for example. leaving devices with Thread radios waiting until this month to gain support. Even here though, Amazon is only supporting a few types of Matter devices. The Google Home on iOS still doesn’t allow on-boarding of Matter devices. And other brands have taken similar small steps or, in some cases, none at all.
That’s actually the case with Level: It hasn’t yet pushed out a firmware update to its smart lock product line. And that’s why Greg is wondering what’s up. We reached out to Level and received this reply:
“[A]ll Level Locks currently have hardware compatibility with Matter. Thread will be supported in future releases because of this. We will have more official news to share in the coming months…”
To be fair, Greg and other Level lock owners should be happy, or at least optimistic. When the locks arrived on the market, they were sold as Bluetooth devices only. It was only later that Level said an inactive Thread radio was inside the Level lock, Level Bolt, Touch and Level Lock Plus. So in a sense, Level owners are in a better spot than many others who bought smart locks that will never get a Matter update.
But I can understand the impatience here. The promise of a software update without a set delivery date can be frustrating. Still, we recommend holding out and waiting for Level to deliver the Matter update rather than buying a new smart lock. These are the types of devices that you buy once ever five or ten years, so it would be a shame to waste the investment.
To hear Greg’s question in full, as well as our discussion on the topic, tune in to the Internet of Things Podcast below:
After paying $329 I’d want this lock to not only open and close without fail, I’d want it to prepare dinner, pet my cat and do the dishes. Still, it does exactly what it said on the tin and you paid exactly what you knew it would cost with the features it shipped. Never buy anything on the promise of future support. Buy things for what they do right now.
Personally, I like the thought and future-proof design of the Yale Assure set of locks where you can buy a module to support any ecosystem. Matter module announced and coming soon. Already supports Zigbee, Zwave and Wifi based on the module selected.