Sometimes I’m called upon to install Samsung mortise locks that customers have purchased from Amazon. These are not my favorite locks to install and I would not install one in my own home.

Samsung offers a variety of sleek digital locks with lots of cool features, including keypad entry, RFID key fob entry, and fingerprint recognition. These locks look like they were designed for the set of Star Trek: The Next Generation. They’re like a 20th-century conception of a futuristic lock. And they usually work. As far as I can tell, none of them have the capability of wirelessly linking into a smart home system. I’m sure that’s coming.

My biggest qualm is that they require a nonstandard door preparation. If you don’t already have a Samsung mortise lock in your door, installing one will require some significant door modification. Regardless of what kind of lock you currently have, it will be necessary to put new holes in your door. If you currently have a standard mortise lock (made by Baldwin, Sargent, Corbin Russwin, etc.), you will also likely have to fill in some of the spaces that are already in the door to assure a snug fit. I suppose this would all be fine if you expected this lock to last for 100 years like those other ones would. But this is a piece of electronics you’d be mounting to your door. Just like with your laptop and your smart phone, it’s likely that in a few years you’d want a new model. Would you then have to stick to the Samsung line because that’s what your door is prepped for? Are you confident you’d still want this brand in a few years? Will Samsung still be selling locks by that time that require this same door prep? Unless you’re pretty comfortable with the idea of replacing your whole door with the next lock change, this should heavily influence your consideration of this line of locks.

I also doubt how focused on security the designers of these locks were. To their credit, these are mortise locks, which are typically more secure than the standard cylindrical locks we find on most doors. The backup key holes are located in a part of the lock that would make them hard to pick. Additionally, they cannot be bumped and the keys themselves are relatively hard to duplicate (which is not always a great thing). Finding someone to rekey the locks would be a particularly interesting challenge. The strikeplates for these locks are lightweight and come with very short screws. It’s certainly possible to install a heftier strikeplate and to secure it to the frame of the house using long screws. But the fact that this isn’t included with the lock makes me think that withstanding a brute-force attack is not the main purpose of these locks. And as far as I can tell, none of these locks have been scored by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), which is the principal authority for rating locks.

Although Samsung’s locks are packed with cool features and aesthetic appeal, the actual security they provide does not justify their high cost, the difficulty of installation, and the problems you encounter when you want to replace them.