Proscenic Smart Lock L60 review: Affordable front-door security

Best Prices Today: Proscenic Smart Lock L60

Smart lock prices have been on the decline for several years, but I haven’t seen one that offers as many features as the Proscenic Smart Lock L60 does for the price.

With this $109 lock on your door, you can gain access by tapping the numbers on its LED-backlit touchscreen, touching your registered fingerprint to the reader above the keypad, using Proscenic’s smartphone app, by touching a 1.25 x 2-inch NFC card to its front, or by inserting a physical key.

Should the lock’s four AA batteries fail while you’re out and about, you can use a portable battery and a USB-C cable to power it up long enough to get you in the door. I tested this feature by removing all the lock’s batteries and was able to unlock and lock it not only with a USB-C cable plugged into a battery, but also with a USB-C cable plugged into my fully charged iPhone 15 Pro.

The Proscenic Smart Lock L60 lock can be opened with a fingerprint, a PIN, an NFC card, or a physical key. It can remember up to 100 codes and up to 100 fingerprints.

Caveats

Before you get too excited about the Smart Lock L60’s price tag, however, know that this is a Bluetooth 5.0 lock, so you’ll also need to purchase Proscenic’s Bluetooth gateway ($29.99) to link the L60 to your Wi-Fi network. You’ll need the gateway to operate and program the lock when you’re not standing in front of it, and to incorporate the lock into your broader smart home ecosystem (the lock is compatible with Amazon Alexa and Google Home, but not Apple Home. It’s not compatible with Matter, either.)

The Bluetooth bridge comes from a third-party manufacturer, Tuya, and Proscenic uses Tuya’s Internet of Things cloud platform. Proscenic did not provide a bridge with the lock they sent for this review, so I can’t report on that element of this product offering.

The lock itself consists primarily of two components: an exterior escutcheon with the keypad, lock cylinder, and USB-C backup power port; and a large (by modern standards) interior escutcheon—measuring roughly 5.75 x 2.75 1.25 inches (146 x 70 x 32mm) (HxWxD). This houses the thumb-turn, motor, and battery compartment.

There’s also a button here for electrically locking and unlocking if you don’t want to use the thumb-turn. The lock’s motor operates with a bit of a whine, so you’ll probably want to use the silent thumb-turn most of the time. A voice announces lock/unlock operations, but it can be disabled if you don’t want it.

This review is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best smart locks.

This is an attractive lock, with a matte black finish on its interior side and on four sides of its exterior element. The exterior face looks to be covered in glass, with a knurled slide-away shutter covering the keyhole. Proscenic says the lock is rated IP65 for protection from the elements, meaning it’s impervious to particulate matter and that it can withstand water jets coming at it from any direction. (We’ll tell you everything you need to know about IP codes at the preceding link.)

The lock is certified ANSI Grade 2 for impact resistance, which puts it in the middle of that scale, ANSI Grade 1 being the highest rating.

Installation

The Smart Lock L60 can be installed on doors that are 1.38 to 2.16 inches thick (35 to 55mm), although it comes with just one set of bolts to secure the interior and exterior elements together (most of the locks I’ve reviewed come with both shorter and longer bolts).

As is typical, the deadbolt can be adjusted for either 2.375- or 2.75-inch backsets (60.3 or 69.8mm). A cardboard drilling template is provided if you’re installing it on a door that doesn’t already have a deadbolt installed. You’ll also find a Phillips screwdriver in the box along with the various screws and other parts.

I didn’t find the Smart Lock L60 particularly difficult to install, and it comes with a well-written and illustrated user manual to make things easier. You’ll insert the deadbolt into its bore hole first, and then attach a steel plate to the interior side of the door. The next step is to hold the exterior escutcheon against the outside of the door, thread a power cable through the bore hole, under the deadbolt, and then push the lock’s tailpiece through the slot on the deadbolt.

The exterior escutcheon isn’t particularly heavy, so I didn’t have much trouble balancing it while I first connected the power cable into a socket on the interior escutcheon, mounted that element on its plate, and then secured the two units together with the provided bolts. Once the lock is secured to the door, the final step is to install the batteries and put on the cover. The whole process took about 15 minutes. That said, I haven’t found any smart lock that’s easier to install than the Level Lock+.

Setup

Once you’ve physically installed the Smart Lock L60, you’ll need to download the Proscenic app—available for Android and iOS—and then add the lock to the app to configure it. The app has an annoying home page dominated by advertising for other Proscenic products, so you’ll need to tap on a picture of the lock before you can do anything with it. Unless you’ve also installed Procenic’s Bluetooth gateway, you’ll need to be within range of the lock when using the app—inside of four feet, in my experience.

The lock’s home screen displays a large circular button for locking and unlocking, with a small icon beneath that reports the remaining battery life as a percentage. Three buttons in a row below are linked to User, Code, and Functions subpages, respectively. A third block at the bottom of the home screen shows the most recent lock events on a timeline: lock, unlock, PIN creation, settings changes, PIN and fingerprint use, attempts to use unregistered PINs and fingerprints, and more. You can click a More button to display a longer history of events.

Each regular user can be set up with any combination of multiple registered fingerprints, PINs, or NFC cards. (Two of the latter are included, and you can buy more in sets of two for $14.99 per set. The lock can recognize up to 20 cards.) PINs must be between six and eight digits, and the app can generate random codes for you to avoid reliance on easy-to-guess PINs based on historical dates or birth dates. Of course, a random set of numbers will be harder for the user to remember.

The lock can remember up to 100 unique PINs and up to 100 fingerprints. If you’re concerned about some miscreant with binoculars watching you enter your PIN, you can add random numbers before and after your actual PIN to disguise it. You can’t put time or date restrictions on regular users, but you can set up one-time-use PINs for situations like granting a contractor access to your home while you’re away. You can also create time-and-date-limited PINs for cleaning-service access or Airbnb scenarios.

To grant someone one-time access, the app generates a random 10-digit string of numbers that can unlock the door within six hours of the code’s creation. You can’t shorten the number or create your own string, nor can you change the time window during which the code is valid. Once the code is used, it can’t be used again, so I’d recommend not enabling the auto-lock feature that automatically re-locks the door. You’ll assign a label to each one-time-use PIN you create, and you can create more than one if needed. A Share button in the app lets you send the code to the recipient via text message, e-mail, or app.

If you want to give someone time-restricted recurring access to your home, you can create a “custom” code that’s valid during a defined window of time. To define this window, you’ll spin one wheel with dates and times labeled “Effective time,” and a second wheel labeled “Expiration time.” Unfortunately, the time is based on a 24-hour clock, so you’ll need to translate afternoon hours (3:00 p.m. is displayed as 15:00, for example). Once the time expires, the code will no longer unlock the door.

Should you buy the Proscenic Smart Lock L60?

I didn’t encounter any problems using the Smart Lock L60 over a period of several weeks. It recognized fingerprints and PINs quickly and reliably, and the temporary codes I created worked as advertised. As I mentioned earlier, the lock’s motor is a bit loud (when you’re hearing it lock/unlock while inside the house, that is), but not obnoxiously so.

The touchscreen is plenty bright, including in afternoon daylight, although I can’t attest to how it would perform in direct sunlight because I tested in on a north-facing door. My biggest reservation with recommending this lock is its BHMA Grade 2 rating, but I can’t complain about its price tag.

If you don’t have high security needs, the Proscenic Smart Lock L60 delivers a lot of convenient features at a very low price.

Best Prices Today: Proscenic Smart Lock L60