the padlock not being tested a little bit too secure smart health innovation

In an editorial dedicated to smart health connected objects, we come across… editors and smart health connected objects. This can create quite annoying situations: borrowed products, paired with a specific account, stored in the wrong place … But when a brand of products does not offer a solution, it can create problems. That’s what happened with Masterlock’s padlock.

Masterlock: An interesting product

It all starts at the Monday editorial meeting. What products will we be testing this week? Among the selection that we currently have in our premises, our choice is for the Masterlock Bluetooth Padlock.

It is a smart health connected padlock that we discovered during Medpi in 2015. It can be controlled remotely and it is possible to share access with a list of chosen people via the product application. It seems interesting and useful to the consumer, hence our choice.

The Review therefore begins: unboxing, photos, note taking, etc.. Until the moment when the actual use of the product has to start. The tester therefore tries to pair the padlock with his phone using the application.

Problems are coming

Problem: Masterlock padlock activation code is already in use. So that means someone has already paired it with their account and their smartphone. No way of knowing who, or with which phone. Only solution: contact Masterlock.

Now is the funny thing. After sending an email to explain our problem to Masterlock, we got a most surprising answer: in the event of loss of the mobile phone fitted with the padlock, you must follow an approach which begins by… bringing the padlock closer to the phone to which it is paired.

Faced with this relentless logic, we decide to send an email to Masterlock’s help service to try to understand the procedure to follow. We then get the following answer: it is impossible to access the padlock without the laptop to which it is paired. Quite simply.

What consequences?

A security measure that may seem reassuring at first, but that poses a lot of problems. What happens if the user loses their laptop or gets it stolen? Or if he puts his phone in a locked locker with the Masterlock and forgets his code? Or even if a bug appears?

The latter will end up with a padlock that is simply unusable and, in the worst case, sawed to gain access to what the device was protecting. The lack of specialized service to counter these possibilities is quite surprising.

Masterlock's Bluetooth Padlock may be a great product (we won't know today anyway), but if you choose to buy it you will have to be very careful with your phone, have a good memory and pray that no bugs will show up.

AB SMART HEALTH REVIEW