Nest X Yale Lock Lets People In After Nest Hello Sees Them

The smart home security market is about to heat up. Amazon just recently acquired Ring, undoubtedly in direct opposition to Google who of course owns Nest. Not too long after the latter launched the Nest Hello, it is coming out with a complement to its smart doorbell camera. Partnering with famed lock maker Yale, the Google subsidiary has just revealed the Nest x Yale Lock designed to let people in without a key. With your consent, of course.

The Nest Hello can really only do so much. It can alert you to a presence at the door and even let you respond, whether or not you're actually at home. But unless that person has a key, which would make your smart doorbell moot anyway, you have no smart way of letting them in.

Enter the Nest x Yale Lock, the oddly-named smart lock that won't leave you wondering who made it. It's advertised to be key-free and tamper-proof. You unlock it with a PIN or remotely from the Nest app. If you're home anyway, you can also do a voice command to open the door without getting up from your couch.

But what about people who are not you? They can still get in in two ways. Either you let them in remotely or you give them their own PIN (that you can revoke if you get into a fight). If they forget that PIN, you can still let them in remotely anyway.

The Nest Hello and the Nest x Yale Lock are not really new but it took months, and an Amazon threat, to finally bring them to market. The Nest Hello retails for $229 while the Nest x Yale Lock, previously known as the Yale "Linus" Lock, goes for $249. And while you can buy and use them separately, Nest really wants you to know they're meant for each other.