I love the direction Wyze has taken with its smart locks, particularly palm recognition. I would love to see Wyze expand this technology beyond deadbolts and offer a smart lever or doorknob lock using the same palm recognition system.
The problem
Most homes and many rental properties have a locking doorknob or lever in addition to, or instead of, a deadbolt.
If I install a Wyze smart deadbolt but leave the existing locking doorknob in place, someone can accidentally lock the knob. At that point, palm access to the deadbolt doesn’t help because I still need a physical key for the knob.
The usual solution is replacing the locking knob with a passage knob that cannot lock. That works, but it would be much better if Wyze could make the latch itself part of the smart access system.
Product idea 1: Palm Smart Lever
I would love a Wyze smart lever that replaces a conventional locking lever.
After an authorized palm is recognized, the lock would simply disengage the latch lock. The person still physically operates the lever to retract the latch and open the door.
This should require considerably less mechanical work from the lock than retracting a deadbolt because the user supplies the mechanical force needed to retract the latch. The electronic mechanism only needs to engage or disengage the lever.
The outside assembly could include:
Palm recognition
PIN keypad
Bluetooth and WiFi connectivity
Emergency physical key access
Battery power
The inside would remain a completely normal functional lever.
A lever version seems like a logical first product because the larger surface area provides more room for batteries and electronics. A smart doorknob version could potentially follow.
Product idea 2: Combined Palm Deadbolt and Lever
For people who want greater security, Wyze could offer a coordinated deadbolt and lever system.
One palm authentication would authorize both locks simultaneously. The deadbolt would retract and the lever would unlock, allowing the person to open the door normally.
This could create three levels of Wyze access products:
- The existing palm smart deadbolt
- A palm smart lever or knob
- A combined palm deadbolt and lever system controlled as one entrance
Why palm recognition matters
One of the things I particularly like about palm authentication is that the credential is physically attached to the authorized person.
I can give someone a PIN, but that person can give the PIN to somebody else. An authorized palm cannot simply be handed to a friend or family member.
There are also situations where carrying a key, phone, card, or other credential is inconvenient.
The situation that originally made me think about this was staying at nudist resorts and communities. Cabins frequently have inexpensive locking doorknobs rather than deadbolts, so guests are handed physical keys.
That creates a rather amusing but very real problem: when you aren’t wearing clothes, you don’t have pockets for the cabin key.
Palm access would be nearly ideal. You don’t need a phone, watch, card, PIN, or physical key. You simply bring your hand.
Palm recognition also has an advantage around pools, hot tubs, showers, beaches, and similar environments where fingerprint readers can sometimes be less convenient because fingers may be wet or wrinkled.
This isn’t limited to nudist resorts. The same concept could be useful for cabins, vacation rentals, gyms, pools, Airbnb properties, apartment amenities, employee areas, and hospitality environments.
Longer term opportunity: Wyze Palm Access for hospitality
There could eventually be a commercial version of this system for properties with multiple locks.
Instead of enrolling a guest’s palm separately at the door of every cabin or room, a property could have a central enrollment device.
A guest checks in and enrolls their palm once. The property’s system securely provisions an encrypted credential to only the lock or locks that guest is authorized to use.
For example:
Guest checks into Cabin 14.
Their palm is enrolled at reception.
Cabin 14 receives an encrypted credential.
The guest can immediately enter Cabin 14 using their palm.
Checkout occurs at 11:00.
At 11:00, authorization automatically expires.
The biometric information should be strongly protected so that the system does not need to distribute a conventional image of someone’s palm. Ideally, the system would use a protected biometric template and device specific cryptographic credentials so that compromising one lock would not expose credentials usable throughout the property.
Property managers could then control which doors a guest or employee can access and exactly when that access begins and expires.
That could make Wyze attractive not just for individual homes, but also cabins, vacation rentals, small hotels, resorts, apartment buildings, offices, and other properties that currently depend on physical keys or easily shared PIN codes.
The part I find most compelling is simple:
Your hand becomes the key, and there is nothing to carry, lose, forget, or casually give to someone else.
I would absolutely buy a Wyze palm smart lever for my own home, and I would love to be able to recommend one to properties that currently cannot use Wyze’s palm technology simply because their doors use locking knobs or levers instead of deadbolts.