Yale has been a household name in locks for my entire life, and, in fact, most of the locks around my home are Yale brand. For a company that’s been around since 1868, it’s surprisingly adept at keeping with the times. Yale now offers a series of smart locks and keypads to turn your home into a smart fortress, allowing access to your locks from your smartphone.

While the company and its competitors offer a wide array of integrated smart deadbolt locks, Yale has now tried to answer the question: “What if I want to turn my existing deadbolt into a smart lock?” While I’m not sure I’ve ever asked that question, I was excited to take a look at the new Yale Approach Lock, which promised to turn any household deadbolt into a smart, app-controlled deadbolt. While this sounded great on paper, I was left with an uneasy feeling after testing it, ultimately deciding I wouldn’t leave my family’s safety in the hands of this retrofit design.

Price, availability, and specs

A modern approach to a traditional lock

Yale has launched this product at a price of $130, though a bundle with an accompanying keypad can be had for $180. Both options are available now directly from Yale, as well as from Amazon, Best Buy, Home Depot, and a number of other retailers, both online and in-store. The Yale Approach Lock comes with the device needed to retrofit any existing deadbolt lock into a smart lock by replacing the mechanism that turns the deadbolt inside the home. Also included is the Wi-Fi bridge device that allows you to control the lock via Wi-Fi. If users purchase the keypad bundle, they will receive a keypad that can unlock the Approach remotely using Bluetooth. Lastly, either bundle option ships with a door sensor to help the Approach track when a door is open or closed.

What I liked about the Yale Approach Lock

The ability to retrofit just about any deadbolt is useful

Yale is trying to bring smart lock technology to old-fashioned deadbolts, which is certainly an admirable project. Whether it’s because you like the aesthetic of your deadbolt, don’t feel like re-keying, or for any other reason, being able to retrofit a deadbolt by placing a smart mechanism on the inside of the door is neat. The installation of the Approach was easy enough; I simply removed the two screws holding the back plate of my deadbolt and replaced it with the easy-to-install Yale Approach mounting frame. Once the frame was secured, I popped the motorized part onto the frame and began the guided setup in the Yale app. Along with setting up the lock itself, the app walked me through sticking the open/close sensor on the door frame, another step that took about one minute.

After installation and setup, which took all of five minutes, I began to set up the rest of the included devices. It was fairly straightforward as each individual device comes with a QR code conveniently placed somewhere on its surface, ready to be scanned by the Yale app. The Wi-Fi bridge was a breeze to set up and was running in about a minute, and the keypad was just as straightforward. I really liked that the Yale app made it easy to add guest codes to the keypad. It was a breeze to allow others into my home while also being able to track their comings and goings. The app also makes it easy to share access with whomever might need it, giving users the option to share guest-level access or full admin privileges. The app also allows users to setup voice activation with Google Home, Alexa, and Apple Homekit.

Overall, the installation, user interface, and ease of use were the saving grace for the Yale Approach lock. But it would end up being its reliability, or lack thereof, that relegated it in my eyes to a nifty backup device instead of something to be trusted 100% of the time in anything close to high-stakes situations.

What I didn’t like about the Yale Approach Lock

For a good lock, reliability is everything, and 99% is not enough.

The first sign of trouble happened during calibration of the retrofit lock. Once I installed the Approach, the app walked me through a series of calibration steps, involving locking, unlocking, as well as opening and closing the door. As the motor spooled up and cycled the lock through its open and closed positions, a thought came to mind. How strong is the motor? How much turning force does it have compared to, say, a grown person turning the key in the lock from the outside or turning the old-fashioned thumbturn lever? I quickly got my answer, but it wasn’t what I was hoping for.

As the lock attempted to calibrate the unlocked position, the motor began skipping and struggling during the last bit of the opening turn. It was immediately apparent that a little bit of “stickiness” in the deadbolt, the kind that you or I would never think twice about and simply exert more force to overcome, was proving an Achilles heel for the Yale Approach. The calibration kept failing until I added some WD-40 to both the inside mechanism and bolt itself. I opened and closed it manually a handful of times and, of course, felt it gliding more smoothly. After this adjustment, the calibration was successful.

While I wish I could say it was smooth sailing from there, it, in fact, was not. You see, the strike plate in the door jamb was just millimeters off a perfect center. You know how you can get used to having to push or pull a door just slightly while locking your deadbolt? Well, that’s typically because the door and the strike plate aren’t perfectly aligned, which is pretty common as houses can shift, and door frames can warp and swell with the seasons. Yet another little thing that is all but ignored during human operation proved too much for the motor in the Yale Approach. So, again, I got the drill back out and re-seated the strike plate, being sure to drive the holes in such a way that the strike plate would be perfectly centered to the bolt. Finally, after this saga of adjustments, it worked smoothly. All this by the way, on a deadbolt, and in a door, that are each less than 10 years old, so I’d be curious to see if there is a further performance hit in much older homes.

I’ll also note that the Yale Approach cannot actually receive Wi-Fi signals itself, as it’s only capable of receiving Bluetooth signals. The included “bridge” works as a Wi-Fi repeater, receiving the signal from the app sent via Wi-Fi and then transmitting the same command to the lock. But here’s the rub: if the bridge is too far from the lock, then it’s out of Bluetooth range, but it needs to be close enough to the router to receive a Wi-Fi signal. So basically, unless the distances between your router, Yale Approach, and available plugs are all in perfect concert, you’re going to have a signal issue one way or the other. This led to me having to plug the bridge into an outlet that is typically taken up by other things.

Verdict: Should you buy the Yale Approach Lock?

The answer here is fairly simple, and that’s to say that when it works, it works. Unfortunately, that just doesn’t cut it for me for something as important as the front door to my home, so I ended up installing it on the back door of my home leading to the backyard. I don’t often find myself needing to get in that way, so the Yale Approach now serves as something of an emergency backup should I or anyone else ever lock themselves out of the home. However, the day that happens, I just have to pray that the strike plate is perfectly placed and that the deadbolt doesn’t stick, or else we’ll all be out of luck.

If there is a specific deadbolt in your home that you think would benefit from this retrofit, then go ahead and pick up a unit. I would just advise that you have your keys on you just in case, and not rely 100% on the Approach. I would only ever use this product on a deadbolt other than the primary one through which you enter and exit your home.