The applied probation snail housekeeper The Smart Latch (hereinafter referred to as the Snail Latch) is just in time for the Spring Festival holiday. Before writing the trial report, a "warm news" attracted me to take it as the beginning of this trial report. The main idea of the news is that a woman in Chongqing could not open the door with her key when she went home. The reason was that the pet dog jumped up to meet the door and touched the anti lock button on the door lock, and finally had to smash the door lock. 。

This news just coincides with the working object of the snail latch - anti-theft door locking button. No matter whether the door lock is a traditional key lock or a popular fingerprint lock, there will be a small device in the interior part of the door lock body - anti lock button.

When indoor people do not want to be disturbed or leave home, for safety, pull the anti lock button to lock the door. This kind of anti lock is different from the anti lock of the lock body with the key outdoors. The anti lock device of the lock body with the key is related to the unlocking mechanism of the lock body, so although the security of the door lock can be improved by using the key outdoors, the thief can use professional tools to open the lock (such as the professional cat's eye unlocking device in the following figure), and quietly steal into the room, Compared with the lock that has not been locked, it only prolongs the time for thieves to pry the lock.

The anti lock button has nothing to do with the key mechanism of the lock body. If you want to open the lock from the outside, you can only remove the door or smash the lock body violently. Thieves generally do not choose such a way that the movement is too static.              

After introducing the anti lock button of the door lock, let's take a look at the snail latch I tried. The working principle is that the battery driven motor rotates to open and close the anti lock button of the latch. My newly decorated house is equipped with fingerprint locks. Compared with traditional mechanical locks, it is not convenient to carry keys, but it is still a great pity that we can not lock our house when we leave home. Although the proportion of private housing companies in the community has declined year by year in recent years, there are still many product salesmen and express delivery staff. The security environment should not be taken lightly. It is necessary to install intelligent anti locking devices such as snail latches. What is being used is an indoor remote control lock from a treasure. The following trial report introduces the experience of snail latches, Compare with the installed indoor remote control lock.

The following evaluation starts from the appearance of the snail latch:

The snails door latch trial products that are available are packed in the current popular simplicity style, and follow the principle of simplicity. Open the box and place all the components in two layers. The first layer is the smart latch body, and the second layer provides the battery, base, remote key, installation instructions, and use instructions at a glance.

Front side of the latch: the trial product in hand is light in color and deep in color. The upper half is silver. There is a round button at the top of the front. There are indicator lights around the button. When it is used, the green light will flash when it is unlocked, and the blue light will flash when it is locked. The button also has a door latch slot indicator. The batteries provided by the merchants are millet batteries, which is very generous.

Back of latch: The back is divided into 3 areas.

The upper part is the fitting slot of the anti lock button, which can be inserted into the slot with a dollar coin or similar object and rotated slightly to make the fitting slot and the anti lock button in the same direction.

The middle area is the battery compartment cover. When you open the battery compartment cover, you can see two battery slots on the left and right, and you can put four No. 5 batteries in. There is an adjustable switch in the middle of the two rows of battery slots that can be moved up and down to control the knob to rotate clockwise or counterclockwise to complete the anti lock action.

The lower area is the height adjustment base, which is equipped with a magnet and can be attached to the iron anti-theft door. By rotating the knob at the bottom of the latch, the tail height of the latch can be raised by 2.5cm to keep the latch and the anti-theft door as horizontal as possible.

Both sides of the latch: there is a square key on both sides of the round button of the latch. Press it at the same time to make the latch disengage from the fixed base.

After introducing the appearance of the snail latch, let's look at its installation:

Installing the snail latch requires only three simple steps.

First, install the battery, and adjust the rotation direction of the snail latch to clockwise according to the action direction of my home's anti lock button from unlocking to locking.

Second, place the anti lock button on the door lock horizontally, remove the 3M adhesive protective sticker from the fixed base provided by the product and put it on the anti lock button, and fix it according to the position of the raised iron sheet on the two sides of the fixed base on the left and right sides of the anti lock button.

Third, align the slot of the snail latch base with the bulge of the fixed base and insert it. The tail of the snail latch is adjusted by the hand wheel to make the snail latch and the anti-theft door basically horizontal.

The installation of the snail latch is really very simple, and can be completed by one person almost without looking at the instructions. The installation is over, but my trial seems to be over. Why? Because The anti lock button of my fingerprint lock is too close to the door handle, and the latch itself has a certain height. The door handle is also a relatively long one, so... look at the following dynamic picture

The dynamic diagram shows that the door handle cannot be fully pressed to complete the unlocking action. Unfortunately, the snail latch cannot be installed on my fingerprint lock.

At this point, there is a problem. The size of the latch given on the snail housekeeper's official website is 156mm * 40mm * 40mm, but I measured that the size of the snail latch is 165mm * 52mm * 31mm, and the tail of the latch can be raised by 2.5cm.

See the following figure for the position comparison of the anti lock button of the anti-theft door lock. The distance between the anti lock button of my fingerprint lock and the door handle is relatively close. The snail latch has a certain height. When the anti lock button is close to the door handle, the installation of the snail latch will cause the door handle to press down and open the door. It is precisely this that leads to the failure of this trial to achieve all purposes.

Although there are problems with the installation, it does not affect our continued testing of the operation of the snail latch:

There are two ways to control the snail latch. The first way is to control the snail latch through the Bluetooth link of the mobile phone APP.

According to the product specification, scan the QR code to download the APP. At present, the manufacturer has developed a mature Android version of the APP, but the IOS version has not been provided yet. I believe that the merchants will improve it later.

Find an Android phone with a system version of no less than 4.3 (jelly beans), scan, download and install the snail butler app, follow the prompts to register with the phone number, log in successfully, first prompt for Bluetooth permission, and after consent, the phone Bluetooth will be turned on, and automatically connect the snail latch. The operating distance is about 3 meters according to my actual measurement, and the connection action is fast, The connection speed is greatly reduced after this distance. The whole process from unlocking the phone to successful link takes about 20 seconds, which is slightly longer. After the connection is successful, APP will display the latch status (locked or unlocked), and the length of time to use the snail latch.

Click the menu key on the top left of the APP to see the functions of activating the latch, switching the latch, latch nickname, voice prompt, automatic locking, etc.

Use it for the first time to make the phone close to the snail latch, click to activate the latch, and complete the pairing activation of the latch. Voice prompt can set the snail latch to mute or voice mode. After the automatic lock is opened and the snail latch is opened, the mobile phone APP will automatically close the latch 25 seconds after the Bluetooth link with the snail latch is disconnected. Good news for obsessive-compulsive patients! However, there are still some bugs in the Android version of the app, such as the configuration of the automatic lock closing function. No matter whether you choose to turn it on or off, the orange origin in front of the option remains unchanged, which makes people wonder whether the selection is successful or not. I hope it will be corrected in the official version. In addition, the Bluetooth link speed seems not very stable, sometimes fast and sometimes slow.

The second method of operation is the remote key. The key is small, and can be charged when in use. The interface is mircisb interface, which is suitable for most Android phone charging lines.

I use the Samsung S6 fast charger to charge the remote key for 30 minutes and then it will be fully charged. When charging, the indicator light on the key will be orange, and it will turn green after being fully charged. Before use, just long press the round button on the snail latch. After hearing the prompt, press the button on the key to complete the pairing. When the snail latch is opened and closed with a key, the indicator on the remote key is the same color as the indicator ring on the snail latch, which is green when opened and blue when closed. However, during operation, sometimes the color change of the indicator light will be confused, and it is hoped that it can be improved during mass production.

Introduced two ways to open the door. Comparatively speaking, I prefer to use the remote key at present. The Android version of APP Bluetooth connection snail latch is not stable at this stage, and the unlocking speed is slow. I hope the next improvement or ios will be better.

Horizontal comparison with competing products:

Since the fingerprint lock was installed, I have been looking for a device that can lock the door from the interior to solve the problem that the fingerprint lock cannot lock the door. Just over a month before applying for the trial of the snail latch, an indoor remote control lock was installed with the introduction of relatives.

The following is a comparison list:

Trial experience and product suggestions:

The snail latch has a very good idea. The existing manual anti lock button of the lock body is sleeved into a rotatable slot, and the slot is driven by a motor to rotate, so that the anti lock button can be operated to reverse lock the door outdoors. The operation link makes full use of the smart phone system to add various additional functions with APP to realize the smart and convenient home.

Several problems encountered during the trial of the product hope that the manufacturer can make further improvement before the product is launched:

The first is to improve the product manual to avoid disputes arising from the installation environment not meeting the requirements. It is recommended to add hints on product size and installation environment, especially to remind customers to first measure whether the door handle of their own lock body will contact with the snail latch when pressed down to the door opening position, resulting in door opening failure, the safety distance between the anti lock button and the door handle, and the height between the snail latch and the anti-theft door after installation. It is recommended to add a folded cardboard in the product package. The cardboard completely simulates the size of the snail latch. Customers can use it to check whether the installation environment meets the requirements. Or give the size of the snail latch in the product website introduction, and suggest customers to simulate a snail latch to check the installation environment according to the given size.

Second, the instructions must emphasize that rechargeable batteries cannot be used. The charge of rechargeable battery is much less than that of ordinary alkaline battery, and the use time is short, which affects the use experience of the product. Most of the smart electronic products I come into contact with will prompt in the manual to disable rechargeable battery.

Third, add the function of automatically opening the latch when the battery is low. Once the snail latch is dead and does not automatically open, it can only be opened like the lady in the news.

Fourth, develop the ios system software as soon as possible, and improve the bugs in the existing software, such as clearly marking the automatic locking function prompt. To improve the success rate of Bluetooth link, consider adding a function similar to WeChat unlocking.

Fifth, improve the color of the remote key indicator light and the indicator light on the snail latch to be consistent during operation.

Sixth, the height adjustment of the tail of the snail latch is currently 0-2.5 cm. If the current adjustment of the hand wheel knob is changed to a pull type height adjustment rod, the adjustment height of the snail latch can be increased.

In general, the snail latch is a creative and golden intelligent security product. If it is further improved on the basis of the trial products, it is believed that every household will be safe with the heavy golden locks.