Re: Bah!
" that inexpensive design choice eventually ends up costing the owner deep in't purse when the gears split."
Having to buy a new lock every year isn't a bug, it's a design feature.
Mockery aside, I'm actually with some of the other posters who say the idea of a smarter lock isn't inherently silly. To start with, more nuanced access rules is a very nice idea if it can be implemented properly. Attempts to do this with physical keys aren't great, not least because they always involve giving people the key to get into your house at some point, and no matter how well you try to control and log that they can always just get a copy cut before giving it back. Being able to assign temporary access to a fingerprint, for example, does solve that particular issue.
Another important point I've not seen mentioned is that any system that relies on having a piece of metal poked into its working parts is vulnerable to having a different piece of metal poked into it. You can make locks more difficult to pick, but you can't avoid having that hole available for poking. A fully enclosed system should be inherently more resistant to physical tampering if it's designed properly.
There are of course still plenty of problems, not least the issue of what happens when it loses power. And of course, relying on biometrics has all the same problems it always does. But just because all the problems haven't yet been solved doesn't mean the idea is inherently stupid and anyone suggesting there may be an improvement over centuries old technology we currently use must be an idiot. It does mean anyone actually buying such a system right now is an idiot, especially if it's like the one seen here, but it's entirely possible someone will come up with a useful solution some time in the not too distant future. It's easy to say that locks don't need improving, but that's what people always say right up until the improved version shows up, and given that locks are regularly compromised it's clear that the current version is far from perfect.