Image credit: Andrea Smith/Techlicious
SwitchBot wants to unlock your front door faster than you can find your keys. The company has announced the Lock Ultra Max Vision Pro Combo at IFA 2026 in Berlin, pairing its fastest retrofit lock yet with a biometric keypad and a Matter hub. Pre-orders are open now at €339.99 in Europe and £339.99 in the UK, and the standalone Lock Ultra Max will cost €189.99 when it arrives. SwitchBot hasn't said whether any of this is coming to the US.
The lock is a retrofit. You'll need to mount it on the inside of your door, and it will turn your existing key cylinder for you, so you won't have to replace the lock or drill anything. SwitchBot says it will fit about 99% of doors, and will 3D print a custom adapter for the unusual ones. Your old metal key will keep working too.
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What's new in the Lock Ultra Max
The main upgrade you're getting is speed. A new brushless motor can hit 160 rpm, 3 times the speed of the older Lock Ultra, and Max Mode will unlock the door in as little as 1.1 seconds. A Quiet Mode will trade some of that speed for softer operation, which SwitchBot rates at up to 56.3 dBA, about the level of a normal conversation.
SwitchBot has also thought hard about dead batteries, which can mean a lockout with some smart locks. The main 4,200mAh battery should last about 9 months. A CR123A backup will take over while the main one charges, good for about 500 locking operations. If both are dead, a supercapacitor in the lock can harvest residual energy for about 30 seconds at a time, giving you up to 5 emergency unlocks. You'd have to ignore a lot of low-battery warnings before this one locks you out.
What the Keypad Vision Pro adds
You'll need to install the Keypad Vision Pro on the outside of the door for the biometrics. Its 3D facial recognition can map your face with more than 30,000 infrared points, and it works in the dark and can recognize you in under a second, according to SwitchBot's lab numbers. It also has palm vein recognition that can read the vein pattern inside your palm without you touching anything. That feature is aimed at kids and older family members, whose fingerprints often scan poorly. You also get fingerprints, passcodes, and NFC cards.
Across the whole system, SwitchBot says you have up to 19 ways to get in, including the app, voice control, a smartwatch, geofencing auto-unlock, and the plain metal key. The biometric data will stay on the device rather than going to third-party platforms. The included hub has support for Matter, so it can work with Apple Home and Home Assistant.
How it compares to Nuki
The obvious rival in Europe is the Nuki Access Kit, currently €419 and regularly €487, which bundles Nuki's Smart Lock Pro with a keypad and a door sensor. That kit will only get you fingerprints and PIN codes. SwitchBot's combo will cost you less and adds face and palm recognition, though Nuki has been an option for European doors for much longer.
Should you get one?
SwitchBot is one of my favorite smart home brands. I've used its curtain robots, and I spent two months with its AI Art Frame for our hands-on, and the company has a habit of nailing its innovations. Techlicious tested an earlier model available in the U.S., the SwitchBot Lock Pro, and found it to be the perfect lock for renters. Everything in the Lock Ultra Max is built on hardware that SwitchBot is already selling, and I'd expect this to be a similarly solid product for European households.
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