Hesitant Handyman Reviews - Kwikset SmartKey Security Padlock Review & How-To
So this week while I was out, I was checking out what was left at a home improvement store that was going out of business. (I feel like the whole corner must have been bad for business, as not so long ago the Toys R Us next door also went out of business, but I digress.) I went in looking for a trailer hitch–I don’t yet have any plans to tow anything with my new-to-me Dodge Ram, but I figure I’ll get there eventually and snagging a hitch for 40% off made it hard to pass up. While I wandered the increasingly barer shelves of the store, though, I stumbled across something I’d not yet seen–A padlock by Kwikset that contains their SmartKey Security technology.
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If you’re not familiar with Kwikset’s SmartKey Security, it’s an innovative piece of lock tech that actually allows you to rekey your own locks. I’ve been aware of the tech for a while now, when we bought our house and I swapped out the locks on the front door and garage, I bought door locks that were equipped with this feature, and it was amazing–No running around the store trying to find a set of keyed-alike locks, I just grabbed my front door kit, grabbed another one for my garage door. I was able to quickly key both sets to the same set of keys, then set aside the unused set of keys in case I ever need to rekey them. But until this chance discovery, I had no idea Kwikset made padlocks that had the same tech.
When we bought our house and I needed a lock for our garden shed, I’d bought a Master lock–that’s always kind of been the standard for me in padlocks. It’s actually really the only name I’ve ever associated with padlocks–whether that’s just great marketing or what, I don’t know. But my biggest pet peeve was trying to keep track of the key in the ever growing mess of keys on my keychain. It’s not like I don’t already have keys to two cars, a house, my office desk, a Thule roof rack (which, in hindsight, I’ve not owned since last Thanksgiving when I sold the Subaru it was attached to to a junkyard after a timing belt failure–I’m still kind of miffed at myself for forgetting to take that with me), two bike locks (spoiler alert: I don’t remember the last time Amanda and I went on a bike ride, much less locked them up somewhere), and the veritable plethora of frequent shoppers cards that I probably should clean up a bit (I might still have a Blockbuster card on there, honestly). The key for the Master lock padlock isn’t the smallest one on my keychain, but it tends to hide when I need it.
The first thing that I did when I got the package opened up was key the lock up to the house key–check out the video above to see exactly how easy it was. Now I have one key to open my front door, my garage door, and my shed. Booyah!
The construction on the lock itself is beefy–it was actually a good deal bigger than the lock I’d had on the shed before. Kwikset touts the lock as pick resistant and bump-proof–I’m not a skilled master thief/lockpick, so I can’t give you an opinion on either of those, but the lock seems pretty dang impenetrable. Also, the padlock retains the key until its locked again, preventing you from accidentally leaving it unlocked.
Overall, I love the ability to rekey the lock myself, and to have one key for all of my exterior locks around the house. I also think the lock is overall better constructed than the old lock. All in all, this is probably the best clearance impulse buy I’ve made in a while!