Before the article begins, I want to note two pieces of information at the beginning of the article:

　　Buying a smart door lock is not as simple as buying a mobile phone. Although the manufacturer has simplified the steps to the greatest extent, some key information points, such as the size of the door, the location where the door lock is installed, and the material of the door, need to be measured in advance and sent to customer service for evaluation.

　　These data are very important, because the installer needs to bring the tapping tools in advance, which will directly affect the time required to install the door lock.

　　As for why I put these two remarks at the beginning, I will elaborate in the evaluation.

　　Smart door locks are very common today, and they can be seen in apartments, offices and even some people’s homes in short rent. In the past three or four years, smart door locks have gradually become "reliable" and "convenient" from the past image of "no electricity to open the door" and "easy to solve".

　　With the acceptance of this product, the market is gradually expanding, and some manufacturers have begun to give smart door locks smarter functions, such as IoT, which is a major direction of smart home products such as smart door locks.

　　Why’ e’?

　　Xiaomi launched Xiaomi Mijia smart door lock in 2018, and then lowered the threshold of smart door lock to less than 1,000 yuan with’ Youth Edition’ in 2019.

　　Today’s Xiaomi smart door lock E can be seen as an iteration of the youth version of Mijia smart door lock. Based on the former, it has enhanced the lock core and anti-pick lock, and its appearance has also changed obviously, but the price is still 999 yuan.

　　Why does Xiaomi choose’ e’ instead of other letters? Judging from the information published by Xiaomi, it actually has these meanings:

　　Easy (six unlocking methods)

　　Ensure (using class c lock core)

　　Especial (custom lock body)

　　Echo (integrated door lock and doorbell)

　　Energy(18 months long battery life, low battery reminder)

　　Enjoy (support Mijia app and Apple HomeKit control)

　　Therefore, although the positioning of Xiaomi smart door lock E this time is a’ youth version’ within 1,000 yuan, it also integrates some functions that were only available in Mijia smart door locks with a price of more than 1,000 yuan. It is described by the words when writing mobile phones, which is a function decentralization; In plain words, it is more cost-effective than the previous youth edition.

　　Installation process

　　As I said before, we should communicate with the customer service in advance about the installation size. This is because the doors are made of iron and wood, and the size of the door lock is larger, so it may be necessary to open another hole when installing, so let the installation master bring professional tools.

　　▲ Remove the old lock and prepare to install the new lock.

　　For example, this time I installed a wooden door. After disassembling the old door lock, the master needs to open a deeper and wider slot to put the lock body in, and also needs to drill holes to connect the lock body and cables on both sides, so the whole installation process takes 2-3 hours to complete.

　　But if the door itself is perforated, a new lock can be installed. The master told me that it only takes one hour to remove the old lock and install the new lock.

　　This is why we should’ measure the size before choosing’. On the one hand, there are requirements for the installation of door locks, and on the other hand, we want everyone to be psychologically prepared for a long installation time.

　　If you don’t know how to judge whether your door can be equipped with a smart lock, Xiaomi gives two methods on official website: one is manual measurement, and the other is using AI to identify and judge. It only takes 10 minutes to determine whether the door is suitable for installation.

　　The design is rounded, and an electronic doorbell is integrated.

　　Although the main body is still designed with big black bars, compared with the previous Xiaomi smart door lock and Youth Edition, the design of the new door lock is more rounded, except that the radian of the front edge is more obvious than before, and the four corners of the door lock have also become large radians and rounded corners.

　　The layout of the indoor internal lock is simpler than before. Under the plastic cover is the battery compartment and the setting and resetting function area, as well as the equipment codes of Mijia app and Apple HomeKit.

　　This time, Xiaomi also changed the anti-lock device from a mechanical knob to a long press for 1.5 seconds. The difference between the two is a bit like the visual sense of parking brake from a traditional handbrake to an electronic one.

　　When I first got started, I didn’t know what the function of this pick was. After consulting the manual, I realized that it was a switch to prevent the cat’s eye from unlocking. No wonder there was a button missing from the inner lock handle when unpacking.

　　When the pick is pulled upward, the door lock will open the cat’s eye-proof unlocking mode. The function of this function is to lock the indoor handle to prevent thieves from opening the door from the cat’s eye with an unlocking tool.

　　The battery compartment of the door lock is a slot of 8 batteries, but in fact, 4 batteries can already open the door lock and work normally.

　　This is because the power supply itself only needs to drive the Bluetooth connection module, LCD and fingerprint identification module of the door lock, and the power consumption of these parts is not very large, so four batteries are enough to support the door lock.

　　However, no matter how fuel-efficient the car is, the fuel tank will run out. For safety reasons, I still suggest filling the battery compartment of the door lock.

　　According to the information released by Xiaomi, the door lock can support 18 months of battery life when it is fully charged, and there is also a low battery reminder (less than 20%), but I have not tested these two data, otherwise this article may not be published until next year.

　　Of course, since the advent of smart door locks, we can still see many rollover sitcoms on the Internet.

　　The scheme given by Xiaomi is’ emergency key+emergency power supply port’, with two Swiss army knife-shaped keys attached to the box, but the key sleeve has no holes, so it can’t be hung on the keychain and carried around, so you can only find a place where you can remember it.

　　The emergency power supply port is at the bottom of the outdoor lock. This time, Xiaomi changed from Micro-USB to USB-C, not because the door lock should also support fast charging, but because USB-C has gradually replaced Micro-USB as the mainstream specification. Android mobile phone users may have USB-C cables on their bodies, but they may not necessarily carry them with them.

　　This time, Mijia Smart Door Lock E integrates the door lock with the doorbell, which means that users don’t have to spend extra money to buy an electronic doorbell.

　　But perhaps to save electricity, the doorbell button will not light up, which will make people ignore the existence of this important function.

　　HomeKit is supported, but there is still no NFC.

　　This time, the unlocking methods of Xiaomi smart door lock E have been increased from five in’ Youth Edition’ to six, and the door lock itself can support three unlocking methods: password, fingerprint and key. After connecting to the mobile phone, you can unlock it with Bluetooth, one-time password and periodic password.

　　The newly added unlocking method is to support Apple HomeKit, which is one of the few smart door locks that can support HomeKit within 1,000 yuan. Users can control the door lock with Apple devices or directly use Siri to open and close the door lock.

　　▲ After connecting to HomeKit, you can use Siri to switch the lock, but I rarely do this.

　　Of course, using the Mijia app can also make the door lock action trigger other Mijia devices, such as controlling intelligent curtain. When I open the door, the curtain automatically opens and closes when I go out; Control the air conditioner partner, automatically turn on the air conditioner after entering the door, and automatically adjust it to the set temperature.

　　▲ HomeKit will pop up a reminder every time you operate the door lock.

　　However, it should be noted that because the door lock itself has no WiFi transmission function, the only connection method is Bluetooth. Therefore, if you want to remotely control the door lock through the mobile phone, receive the door lock message push, or control other smart home devices through the door lock, you need to prepare a Bluetooth gateway to bridge the door lock and other smart devices.

　　When you enter the Mijia app, you can enter the authentication information of administrators and ordinary users. Theoretically, both roles can enter multiple users, but the permissions they can use are different, and each user can enter multiple authentication information.

　　Under no special circumstances (fuzzy fingerprints, foreign objects blocking, etc.), users aged 10 and 75 who participated in the test can easily pass the verification.

　　Children can use the combination of password and fingerprint to unlock the lock; If it is inconvenient for the elderly to enter the password, they can also use fingerprints to complete the identification.

　　If it is an illegal user, the door lock will issue a’ delayed time unlocking’ or send a warning reminder to the bound account after repeated identification failures.

　　▲ Check the unlocking record through Mijia app.

　　I think one-time password and periodic password are the’ guest mode’ in mobile phones. These two functions allow the system to generate passwords for short-term use, or set a time for fixed-point use.

　　For home users, this mode allows nannies and guests to directly enter passwords to enter the door; For the landlord of short rent apartment, periodic password can save a lot of trouble of resetting the password deliberately.

　　However, this time Xiaomi Smart Door Lock E still doesn’t support NFC unlocking of mi band and mobile phones, which makes my natural and unrestrained coefficient drop to a Level every time I unlock the door.

　　In this evaluation, I turned on the’ double authentication’ mode. In this mode, the password panel will have a double shield icon. You need to enter the password first, and then pass the fingerprint verification to unlock it.

　　▲ Double authentication: enter the password first, and then verify the fingerprint.

　　Although the whole unlocking process is a little cumbersome, and double authentication is more power-consuming than ordinary authentication, these operations are nothing in the face of security.

　　▲ The door lock can be locked by lifting the handle indoors and outdoors.

　　In addition, when the mobile phone is connected to the door lock by Bluetooth, the mobile phone can also directly control the door lock to be locked; Or turn on the’ protection mode’ and join other smart devices to automatically turn on the alert after the user goes out.

　　How safe is the door lock?

　　The intelligent door lock body uses a C-class direct-inserted lock core, which we have seen in other door locks of Mijia before. On the basis of this lock core, there are two points that can be taken out separately:

　　Add anti-lock function

　　Real-time condition monitoring of door lock

　　The door lock itself consists of three parts, outdoor and indoor lock panels and the middle lock body. These three parts are relatively independent mechanisms, so even if the front panel is removed, it will not affect the work of the middle lock body, and we can also use the key to unlock the lock.

　　▲ Door lock body

　　On the other hand, the main chip is behind, and the indoor panel is the’ host’ part of the door lock. The purpose of this design is to prevent the’ black box’ (which interferes with the door lock work through electromagnetic fields) from being electronically cracked outside.

　　This time, the new door lock is based on the addition of’ anti-locking’ technology in the first two items. The reason for adding this technology stems from the’ soft card unlocking’ that was exposed last year.

　　▲ Image from: Morning News

　　In December last year, two reporters of "Morning News" tried to crack the electronic door lock by unlocking it with a soft card. As a result, they opened the electronic lock in less than one minute. This is because the design of the door lock does not take into account that the lock tongue can be cracked by the card. As long as the soft card pushes the lock tongue open, it can interfere with the door lock opening.

　　In order to prevent similar cracking methods, many door locks are now changing the design of locking tongue. The solution given by Xiaomi Intelligent Door Lock E this time is to add locking tongue to solve the problem of unlocking the card, so that the structure of the main lock is a group rather than a single one, and it is difficult to unlock it by soft card alone.

　　If the door is left unlocked, it will trigger a false alarm, and at the same time push a notice to remind you to close the door. The default time is 3 seconds, and the alarm is 5 seconds;

　　When the goalkeeper is damaged, the door lock will also give a warning reminder, but I can’t inspire this warning anyway, probably because I didn’t do too much damage to the door lock.

　　The first smart door lock to get started

　　Xiaomi Smart Door Lock E is an upgraded product based on’ Youth Edition’, which adds mechanical and intelligent functions on the previous basis, such as integrating electronic doorbell, adding support for HomeKit protocol, strengthening the safety of mechanical structure and so on.

　　More importantly, the price of the new door lock will continue to be set at 1,000 yuan, which means that the entry threshold for users is still low. Even for a two-bedroom and one-bedroom apartment, all the door locks are only the cost of an ordinary mid-range mobile phone.

　　However, compared with the lower price, the support of Mijia ecological chain is the most fundamental advantage of the new door lock compared with competing products. A smart door lock is equivalent to the switch of Mijia smart household appliances in the whole house, which is one of the few smart door locks that can be done in the same level and price.

　　This time, the new support for HomeKit basically connects the products of two IoT camps in series. For users who are both Apple and Android devices, this dual-platform compatible setting will be the icing on the cake.

　　However, perhaps due to positioning or cost considerations, Xiaomi has not moved all the functions of the previous smart door lock to this new product, such as NFC. Although NFC unlocking may not be a common function, it is just like unlocking a computer with a bracelet, which is better than nothing.

　　However, will these small obstacles affect the product? No, after all, safety is the first thing for products such as door locks, and others are just measures to enhance the experience. As for the function, in the face of this price, the hardware should be upgraded and the software should be perfected. As an entry-level smart door lock, it has no obvious defects that can make people pick out thorns.

　　On the whole, Xiaomi’s smart door lock E should be the first smart door lock for users who have never been exposed to smart door locks before or just want to choose a door lock within a limited budget.