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I’ll be straight up. I’m a technology nut. I love new gadgets as much as a spy in a spy movie does. One place that I like to find new and exotic gadgets is around the house. I watch shows on the Home Channel that talk about the latest and greatest gadgets like built-in Internet access appliances, electronic windows and keyless door locks.

That last area, keyless door locks has made some great strides in the past ten years. The days of carrying a key are definitely becoming a thing of the past. Soon our finger print will be the key needed to get into our homes at night.

This new technology has had some pretty steep hurdles to overcome in the meanwhile. For one, most keyless locks require batteries to function. Plus these batteries must also run the motor device that will move the deadbolt from a locked to an unlock position.

This type of action is definitely battery life limiting. I purchased a keyless door lock for my garage door, but I do find that I’m replacing the batteries probably every 4 or 5 months. This unit is about seven years old and these locking devices now tout battery lives of up to several years.

Another thing is the elements. Many of these locks can be sitting on an outside door in excessive temperatures. This can cause real havoc to electronics. Again, the bright engineers of today have found ways to make these electronic locks to endure in temperatures as severe as -60 degrees Centigrade.

Another avenue that the lock manufacturers have struggled with is the concept of biometrics. The ideas of your figure or eye print being the key that opens the door.

The electronics for both of these applications have been around for a while, but bringing this technology to the masses at a low price has been the challenge to overcome. Once again bright engineers are slowly but surely overcoming the fingerprint reader. There are still some hurdles to overcome in this technology at the time of writing this article, but I’m pleased to say that there are some models on the market at this time that are getting pretty good reviews.

So, what do you think the technology of tomorrow is going to look like in our homes? Do you envision built-in electronics all over the place or have we pretty much milked this out with the humble door lock?