Lockly Smart Safe Review: Big Protection for a Small Safe
Advantages
- Great biometric access options
- Strong defense against forced access
- Including mounting kit
- Simple app
- Fire-resistant insert
- Inner lining and LED lighting
Cons
- Too small for some home applications
- Fire safety can be better
- Side covers are more vulnerable than the rest of the safe
Overall score: 8.2/10
Achievement: 9
Ease of use: 9
Features: 9
Design: 7
Value: 7
Home safes come in all shapes and sizes, but Lockly’s model carves out a narrow niche for small, smart safes that do everything they can to not compromise on protection. The result is a small but mighty safe, big enough to hold important documents, cards, jewelry, gifts (or guns), but small enough to fit easily on a shelf or in a drawer.
I tested Lockly’s safe to the max, including multiple attempts to break inside. Far from flimsy, it’s a very secure, rugged safe package for your home — as long as you don’t need a lot of space. Perfect for an office, apartment, small bedroom, or garage, Lockly’s safe delivers, as long as you’re willing to pay upwards of $300 for a safe this size. Let’s dive into the details.
Lockly Smart Safe: design and dimensions
Lockly’s smart features run on four AA batteries.
Lockly’s mailbox-style safe is one of the smallest we tested, clocking in at well under 1 cubic foot. While it has enough room for small valuables like passports, cards, jewelry, anything you can fit in an envelope, and even a handgun or two, you’re not going to be able to fit much else in there. That’s an immediate limiting factor, but if you can overcome the capacity, Lockly’s design is impressive.
The alloy steel construction with a pneumatic lid is sturdy, heavy, and well made. I’ll go into more detail below when I talk about durability, but this safe is built to withstand almost anything. “Almost” includes fire protection: it’s not technically fire-resistant, which is a shame, but it does have fire-resistant inlays to lessen the impact of a house fire and hopefully keep the stuff inside from burning.
The interior includes an LED light for illumination, a soft cushion to protect delicate items from scratches, and multiple pockets of varying sizes. It also houses the battery pack, which requires four AA batteries to operate but is well-hidden when it’s done. Those batteries should last about a year or two, depending on how the safe is used. Now, let’s take a look at what they’re powering.
Lockly’s secure interior features padding, an LED light and fire-resistant inserts.
Lockly Smart Safe: Access Control
On the front of Lockly’s safe is a touch panel with a fingerprint sensor, and beneath that, a single physical lock. It’s a compact, effective approach that lets you enter dozens of fingerprints for instant access for multiple people. Once programmed, I found the fingerprint reader to be very accurate and very, very quick in action—it’s satisfying to see the pneumatic door open with just a touch.
Those round number buttons also offer an alternative to number-based unlock codes. While it may seem like an odd design at first, it serves another purpose besides saving space: Lockly supports a self-randomizing mode that changes which numbers appear on which buttons after each use, so you can’t just rely on your button press pattern to unlock it. If someone continues to try to access the safe when they don’t have the code, Lockly will send you a tamper alert or record it in your access history, which you can review at any time.
Finally, the physical key is specifically designed to discourage lock picking, so traditional lock picking attempts will not work.
Lockly Smart Safe: Durability and lock testing
A home safe isn’t all that useful if someone can break it open and take it away to take it apart later. Lockly solves the first problem with an included mounting kit, so you can bolt it to a surface. The second part required a bit more hands-on work. Luckily, my property has a decent collection of pointy lava rocks — you can see where this is going.
Lockly’s conformation held up surprisingly well during the smash tests.
After dropping, throwing, and repeatedly smashing the Lockly safe with rocks, I can say that it is as durable as it feels. In fact, I’m impressed that the safe showed so little damage, with the sturdy metal only showing some scuffs and dings, while the touchscreen was intact. The side panels fared worse, with one peeling slightly after the abuse. That was the only weak point I noticed with the safe, although I should note that the side panels are mostly for stability and appearance and do not affect the overall integrity of the safe.
When the safe was hit, one of the hard plastic sides came loose, but the safe was not damaged.
Then I tried it in a more subtle way. I’m not a Lock Opening Lawyerbut like many of you i have looked at the manuals on how to break open cheap safes with the right force, like using a crowbar or screwdriver in the right places. i also tested it. for a safe this small, i used a sturdy flathead screwdriver, a trusty hammer and made a lot of noise.
Surprisingly, the screwdriver caused little damage to the Lockly’s lid and the safe could not be forced open.
The outcome was again in Lockly’s favor. I concentrated on the weakest points of the lid where it was screwed down, hoping to pry the bolt out far enough to force the lid open or to break it around the bolt. Nothing worked. In fact, I was surprised at how little damage the lid had sustained from my efforts, only minimal gouges were visible. Eventually I reached the point where my efforts were more likely to damage my screwdriver than the lid.
With large power tools and enough time, I could certainly crack the Lockly Smart Safe, but that’s a bit beyond what I could expect for a smaller safe like this, so I’ve given up (for now).
Lockly Smart Safe: smart features and app
The Lockly app is very simple.
Lockly’s app is designed to work with all of its smart lock products, and it treats the safe as one of those models. I found setup and operation to be streamlined, with no major surprises. You can connect to Wi-Fi with an included Lockly hub, or simply use Bluetooth for nearby control and a bit more security.
The unlock logs from some of my testing, displayed in the Lockly app.
The app is simple, even for inexperienced users. The main page can lock or unlock the vault, and you have menu options to view the access log or visit settings and customize a few modes, including the randomize number option I mentioned above. It’s basic, not terribly in-depth, but you don’t have to worry about complexity either. You won’t find compatibility with other home platforms or voice assistants like Alexa and Google Assistant here, though.
Lockly Smart Safe: Value for money
Lockly’s safe is expensive, retailing for $360 — though with some discounts and some searching on the site, I’ve found it for considerably lower prices, even under $300 in some cases. The high price makes more sense after testing, given the safe’s combination of smart features and sturdiness. However, it’s still quite expensive for a smaller safe and may not be right for all budgets. This is largely a case of “you get what you pay for,” but my list of the best smart safes includes more affordable options as well.
Lockly’s safe has withstood some adversity and, while somewhat battered, is still in working order.
Final Word on the Lockly Smart Safe
I’ve smashed it, I’ve tried to pry it open, I’ve found the lock won’t pick — that’s a great start for a smart safe that keeps on ticking. Lockly adds to that durability with some nifty, speedy smart features, including options to make it Bluetooth-only if you’d rather avoid Wi-Fi.
While it gets top marks for both tech and security, I do wish the safe had more built-in fire protection than just the inlays, and you’re paying a pretty penny for such a complete package. But if you want a safe of this size for your smaller valuables, you can’t go wrong with Lockly’s model.
