// ZDNET — MOBILE & WEB
Ring’s new smart lock has a manual fallback that can’t lock you out – how it works
The brand just announced a smart lock with a manual 'power dial' that charges the device in case it dies.
For as much as Ring has carved itself a spot in the home security market, the brand still doesn’t have a smart lock — though that’s about to change. A new Ring Smart Lock was just announced this week, expanding the Ring ecosystem and Alexa devices.
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The Ring Smart Lock attempts to safeguard against power loss with a unique dial that generates electricity by manually turning it. This is useful if your smart lock dies, since you can simply power it long enough to open your door and get inside.
Imagine coming home from an extended vacation, only to find that your smart lock’s battery died while you were gone. Instead of carrying a physical key in an emergency like this, you can turn the dial on the external smart lock body until the pad lights up to enter your PIN or scan your fingerprint. This totals four different ways the lock can be functional: a fingerprint reader, the keypad, the Ring app, or via Alexa.
Once you get inside, you can pop out the lock’s Quick Release Ultra battery pack and recharge it at home without worrying about replacing batteries. As for different ways to unlock, the Ring Smart Lock supports fingerprint scanning, PIN codes (including temporary codes), Alexa commands, and the Ring app.
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As a Ring product, it’s expected to work seamlessly within a Ring and/or Amazon Alexa ecosystem. You can connect multiple compatible devices and control them with Alexa or the Ring app for efficiency.
The idea of a smart lock you can still open with a dead battery sounds quite attractive and is something I’d prefer over carrying a backup key. The underlying idea here is that you have a lock that won’t ever be inoperable — if it dies, you can instantly power it up again.
Aside from the fact that I don’t like carrying a physical key, a hand-crank smart lock that you can quickly use if the battery dies is great for kids and family members. My oldest kid likes unlocking the door every day after school, and having a backup they can use to still unlock it if the battery dies is better than me having to rescue them with a key.