Smart locks are a great idea but terrible in execution — especially when they don’t work. Many New York apartment buildings installed Latch (soon to be rebranded as Door) smart locks and residents are not happy.
As if accidentally locking tenants out of their apartments weren’t enough, Latch has an added “benefit” for landlords: constant surveillance!
More important, Latch allows landlords to keep tabs on their tenants. It lets them know every time a renter or guest enters a building’s front door, which in theory makes it more difficult to run an Airbnb, underground casino, or illegal wildlife trade out of one’s rental apartment. Each Latch device keeps a log of when and by whom it’s opened, and main-entrance locks even take pictures of residents as they arrive home. You can imagine how thrilled I was when I discovered the Latch app’s “history” tab, which contains an archive of the worst pictures of me that I have ever seen, shot at gut level through a fish-eye lens while I scowl and fumble my phone.
