There are plenty of smart locks out there that let you lock and unlock your door using a mobile app or your voice, but very few offer fingerprint recognition as an additional option. The $249 Kwikset Halo Touch is one of the few; it supports Alexa and Google voice commands, has built-in Wi-Fi and a mobile app, and is equipped with a fingerprint scanner that lets you unlock your door quickly with one touch. It’s a sleek-looking lock that’s easy to install and offers quiet operation, but it lacks the third-party integrations that you get with our Editors’ Choice winner, the identically priced August Wi-Fi Smart Lock.
Halo Touch Design and Features
The Halo Touch is designed for doors that are 1-3/8 to 2 inches in thickness. A stylish lock, it comes in a sleek contemporary design (available in matte black or satin nickel) or a curved traditional design (in satin nickel or venetian bronze). It’s a full lock assembly that comes with interior and exterior escutcheons, a deadbolt latch and strike, a mounting plate and mounting hardware, four AA batteries, a pair of keys, and a quick start guide.
The exterior escutcheon measures 4.0 by 2.9 by 0.9 inches (HWD) and has a keyway, a fingerprint scanner, and an LED bar that glows green when the door is successfully unlocked, orange when locking, and red when an unsuccessful unlock occurs (with an unregistered fingerprint for example). The interior escutcheon measures 5.7 by 2.7 by 2.0 inches with the cover. It has a thumb turn knob, a status LED, and a removable black panel that gives you access to the removable battery caddy, two setup buttons, and a programming button. Under the hood is a 2.4GHz Wi-Fi radio and a Bluetooth radio.
The Halo Touch uses the same Kwikset mobile app (for Android and iOS) as the Halo Wi-Fi Smart Lock. It opens to a My Home screen that displays the name of the lock and when it was last updated. In the center of the screen is a circle with a lock icon in the middle. When the lock is locked, the circle is red and the lock icon is locked, and when the lock is unlocked, the circle is green and the icon is unlocked. Tap the circle to lock and unlock the door. Off to the upper right are battery level and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth indicators, and down below are People, History, and Settings buttons.
Tap the People button to add lock users with full-time access, or access limited by date with specific times of the day. When you create a user, you can register one or two fingerprints for them. Here you can also enable Secure Mode, which temporarily disables the fingerprint scanner.
The History button takes you to a screen where you can see a daily log of lock events and how they were implemented (voice control, app control, auto lock, fingerprint scan). Use the Settings button to edit the lock name, configure an auto lock delay time, enable or disable lock sounds, and see which phones are paired with the lock.
The Halo Touch works with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant voice commands, but it lacks support for Apple HomeKit and doesn’t work with IFTTT applets that allow it to interact with other smart home devices.
Installation and Using the Halo Touch
As with the Kwikset Halo, the Halo Touch is a complete lock system, which means I had to remove all of my existing lock hardware to install it, a job that takes around five minutes and requires a Philips screwdriver. I already had the Kwikset mobile app installed from a previous review, but if this is your first Kwikset device, you’ll have to download the app.
I selected the Halo Touch from the product list, chose the interactive installation guide (you can also download an installation PDF), and followed the on-screen instructions to measure the door holes to make sure the lock would fit. I then installed the latch assembly and the strike plate, fed the data cable through the bottom of the mounting plate, and attached the exterior escutcheon to the mounting plate. I plugged the data cable into the port on the interior escutcheon, attached the escutcheon to the mounting plate, and installed the four AA batteries.
After the lock performed an automatic handing process, I secured the escutcheon cover and tapped the plus icon in the upper right corner of the app to add the lock to it. I removed the sliding cover from the interior escutcheon and pressed and held the A button for three seconds, until the lock beeped and the LED began flashing blue. I tapped Next and the lock was immediately recognized. I paired the lock to the app, gave it a name, and selected my home Wi-Fi SSID from the list. I entered my Wi-Fi password and waited a few seconds for the lock to connect to my LAN and to a remote server. Once connected, the lock was automatically added to my Alexa device list. I registered my fingerprint when prompted, tapped Done, and the installation was complete.
The Halo Touch worked well in testing. Lock and unlock operations were smooth and quiet, and the fingerprint reader never failed to unlock the door. The lock responded quickly to app commands, and always generated a push alert when the lock was engaged. Alexa voice commands to lock and unlock the door worked without a hitch, as did the auto lock feature. Additionally, the lock always adhered to my temporary user schedules.
A Very Versatile Smart Lock
With the Kwikset Halo Touch, you can lock and unlock your door with your phone, with Alexa or Google voice commands, with a fingerprint, or with a set of traditional keys. It’s a stylish lock that’s easy to install and offers-whisper quiet operation. It responded instantly to all lock and unlock requests in testing, and always adhered to user schedules. Although you can include the lock in Alexa and Google routines, it doesn’t support IFTTT applets that allow it to work with numerous third-party smart devices such as cameras and lighting systems. For that you should consider our Editors’ Choice winner, the August Wi-Fi Smart Lock, which also works with Apple HomeKit. That said, it doesn’t offer fingerprint scanning, so if that and interoperability with other smart devices are a must, the $219.99 U-tec Ultraloq U-Bolt Pro (also an Editors’ Choice winner) is your best bet.
