Ultraloq U-Bolt Pro WiFi Smart Deadbolt: Amazon / Walmart
What kind of lock do you have on your entry doors to your garage? It’s pretty common to find a standard deadbolt, but if you’ve ever wanted to ditch your physical lock and key, you can replace it with an electronic door lock with a keypad. I wrote a review on one of these types of locks from Schlage, which can be found here.
Now, if you want to step it up a notch, you could upgrade to a keyless entry door lock with smart Wifi capabilities, such as this one made by Ultraloq. This deadbolt lock is called the U-Bolt Pro WiFi Smart Deadbolt. It can connect to your home’s WiFi and also to an app on your smartphone, allowing you to remotely lock and unlock your door, as well as configure various settings and users on the device. You can even set each household member’s fingerprint to unlock as well.
When you open the box, you have all of these parts ready for you to install. It also comes with a set of AA batteries and a door sensor that sticks to your door and door jamb. The install is actually quite easy; you just need a Phillips head screwdriver for the install. The overall installation took me about 20-30 minutes. I recommend that you follow the instructions that come with the door lock to ensure that it gets installed properly. There may be some variation depending on your specific door, but I will be detailing my own install here.
First, I removed the existing deadbolt lock from my door by removing the Phillips head screws of the dead bolt itself, and then removed the faceplate off the side of the door with two Phillips head screws there. I then pulled the latch off, and removed both sides of the dead bolt.
Remove the old strike plate on the door jamb, and then install the new one. On the inside strike plate side that goes into the door frame, there are (3 qty) screws that go in through the top, bottom, and center. There is then another two screws that go into the top and bottom of the outside strike plate. On the door side, there are two more Phillips head screws to secure the latch plate to the side of the door.
The latch of the new smart deadbolt should be retracted during this part of the install. I positioned the new keypad from the outside and pushed it into the opening with the stick going through the narrow opening of the latch plate, and also ensured the wiring goes through the door opening (but below the latch.) The interior mounting plate goes on from the inside with the wiring coming out the opening. Then mount the plate with the two larger screws. Finally, bring in the interior assembly, and plug in the wire connector.
At this time, the lock handle should be in the vertical position. I secured the interior assembly with the two small screws that are supplied. Install the (4 qty) double AA batteries and then reinstall the cover.
One convenient feature is that the battery cover is easily accessible, so whenever the batteries are low, you just open the cover with your hand and replace the batteries. Other electronic locks require you to unscrew the cover with a screwdriver in order to change out the battery inside, but the U-Bolt Pro doesn’t require any tools.
This completes the physical installation of the Ultraloq U-Bolt Pro WiFi Smart Deadbolt on your garage entry door. Now, you can download the app on your smartphone and follow the instructions to connect it to your door lock. The most useful part of knowing whether your lock is locked or unlocked is when you leave your home and you question yourself, “did I lock the door or not?” I know we’ve all been there; we’ve left the house and locked the door so many times that we can never really remember if we’ve actually done it the last time or not.
The app guides you through the process of setting up your fingerprint into the system. You can even have fingerprints setup for different users along with their own respective key codes.
I’ve been using this smart deadbolt for a 9 months now and it has been working well up until recently. The keypad and fingerprint sensor has been working great and the app hasn’t had any issues.
There were two major issues we’ve recently noticed however. The first issue is that the auto-lock feature started to not work; we’d notice this after coming to the door after it should have auto-locked already and find it to be unlocked already. I’ve confirmed now that the lock no longer auto-locks.
The second issue is that after unlocking the deadbolt, the door wouldn’t open, which was due to the lock not completely retracting. It would open about 90% of the way, leaving a part of the latch still protuding out, which prevented the door from being able to be opened.
I’ve since replaced the Ultraloq with a replacement unit because I like the product so much. I’m hoping that the first one was just defective, and that this replacement item does not have the same issues. So far, I’ve been using the replacement item for a few months now and so far, so good. However, only time will tell. If this lock ends up having the same issues as before, I’ll go back to my trusty ‘ol Schlage and update this post.
