Level locks had a secret Thread radio this whole time

A firmware update will bring Matter to all of Level’s locks, making them interesting outside the Apple Home ecosystem.

by Nathan Edwards

Nov 3, 2022, 4:02 PM UTC

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Photo of the Level Lock Plus in satin nickel installed on a door. The door is ajar, and the deadbolt is extended.

The Level Lock Plus and Level’s other locks will soon work with many more smart home platforms.

Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

Nathan Edwards is a senior reviews editor who’s been testing tech since 2007. Previously at Wirecutter and Maximum PC. Current fixations: keyboards, DIY tech, and the smart home.

Level’s entire lineup of Bluetooth smart locks — best known for hardly looking like smart locks at all — have had hardware support for Thread this whole time and will soon be updated to support Matter over Thread. You love to see it.

Level’s smart locks, which include the Bolt, Lock, Lock Touch, and the just-reviewed Lock Plus with Home Key, are clever and discreet — the Bolt fits entirely within the cutout of your existing deadbolt. But they were Bluetooth-only, and smart home integration and out-of-home control were limited to Apple Home (with a Bluetooth connection to a HomePod Mini or Apple TV) and Ring (if connected to a Sidewalk Bridge like the Ring Video Doorbell Pro). With such limited platform support, Level’s locks have been pretty niche.

But they won’t stay that way. Via email, Level’s co-founder and CTO Ken Goto told The Verge that “all Level Locks are 100% hardware compatible with Matter” and that the 2.4GHz radios inside each Level lock will be upgraded to support Matter over Thread. Goto did not provide a timeline for when this update would be available.

That update means that Level’s locks will no longer be limited to Apple Home and Ring. As long as you have a Thread border router, they’ll work with Google Home, Amazon Alexa, Samsung SmartThings, and any other Matter-compatible smart home controller. If I can wax rhapsodical for a second, this is exactly what Matter was supposed to do for the smart home, and I’m jazzed that Level is taking advantage of it. Assuming Matter actually works, of course — we have yet to see how it does outside of controlled demos.

This makes Level the third company (by my count) to announce Thread-over-Matter smart locks. Schlage locks like the Encode Plus have Thread already and will support Matter, while Yale is bringing Thread over Matter to its Assure 2 locks via interchangeable networking modules. Others are doubtless on their way; The Verge’s Jennifer Pattison Tuohy and Thomas Ricker are reporting from Matter’s official launch in Amsterdam this week and have probably seen things I couldn’t even imagine.

What is Matter?

Matter is a smart home interoperability standard designed to provide a common language for connected devices to communicate locally in your home without relying on a cloud connection. It is built to be secure and private, easy to set up, and widely compatible.

Developed by Apple, Amazon, Google, and Samsung (and others), Matter is an open-sourced, IP-based connectivity software layer for smart home devices. It works over Wi-Fi, ethernet, and the low-power mesh networking protocol Thread and currently supports most of the main device types in the home. These include lighting, thermostats, locks, robot vacuums, refrigerators, dishwashers, dryers, ovens, smoke alarms, air quality monitors, EV chargers, and more.

A smart home gadget with the Matter logo can be set up and used with any Matter-compatible ecosystem via a Matter controller and controlled by more than one with a feature called multi-admin.

Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Samsung SmartThings, and Apple Home are some major smart home platforms supporting Matter, along with hundreds of device manufacturers.

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