..."Good Housekeeping's Research Institute Touts MasterLock smartTOUCH GDO as Leading Product in Lab Testing"...

Most reliable fingerprint-scan locks

May 26, 2008

By Good Housekeeping

It sounds like something out of a James Bond movie -- fingerprint-reading locks for your home. But the technology is becoming more common.

The Good Housekeeping Research Institute just tested a few of these new locks to see if they're worth the money.

"Fingerprint-scanning technology is showing up in a lot of consumer products nowadays. You see it on laptops and printers, and more recently on front door openers and garage door openers," said Stacy Genovese, the institute's engineering director.

The plus is that you don't have to go nuts looking for your keys if you have keyless locks on your property.

"The way these locks work is there's either a pad that you put your finger on top of, or little sensor that you scroll your finger over. They read your fingerprints and if you are a registered user, it opens the door for you," said Genovese.

The institute tested these locks in a variety of ways.

"We had many people register as users so they could open the doors, and then tested it on lots of other people that weren't registered to make sure it wouldn't let them in. We also tested it in a rain tester and in a humidity chamber set at 30 degrees so you could get in in the winter," Genovese said.

The institute found two products that proved to be very reliable.

.....Topping the class of garage door openers was the Master Lock SmartTOUCH by BioMetrx ($130).

"The way this works is this piece is connected to a garage door operator and it communicates wirelessly with this device that gets mounted on the outside of your garage," said Genovese. "Open the case, scroll your finger, and wait for your garage door to open."

A lock that reads fingerprints makes it easy to add or delete a user. These locks usually work on battery power, and the batteries will last 12 to 18 months before you need to replace them. The locks have an alert that tells you it's time to replace the batteries.