The Schlage Sense Pro unlocks your door without touching it—but is it worth $399?

Plenty of modern smart locks make it easier to get into your home than fiddling with metal keys. The Schlage Sense Pro, however, gives Apple Watch and iPhone users the easiest, completely hands-free experience of them all.

The Sense Pro features ultra-wideband (UWB) technology so it can sense how close someone with Apple’s Homekey is and even which direction they’re coming from. The result is an uninterrupted and secure way to enter the house.

I’ve used and covered dozens of smart locks, including the previous flagship, Schlage Encode Plus, also with Apple’s Homekey support. So far in my testing, the Sense Pro has been good, but it’s only an incremental improvement. Its total size isn’t much smaller than the Encode Plus, and its single design, in black or silver, at launch is overly plain—maybe too modern for some.

My biggest hindrance to a full-throated recommendation is only incremental improvement combined with a $399 retail price tag. Value-wise, the Schlage Sense Pro is a tough sell. But let’s dig into how the smart lock performs and why it might still be compelling if the price ever drops.

Convenience is the key to the Sense Pro

The addition of UWB to the Sense Pro, along with NFC tap-to-unlock and a touchpad, gives this lock its upper hand. The pitch is that an iPhone or Apple Watch with a Homekey, through UWB, will be able to detect your precise movements and unlock automatically as you arrive home.

Touchless unlocking does work. I spent a couple of weeks using it on the Sense Pro with my iPhone and, separately, with an Apple Watch. Most mornings I go running with only my Apple Watch and then, as I come home, the door unlocks automatically.

My experience, however, is not as smooth as the marketing may suggest. Usually I have to wait a second or two before I hear the deadbolt unlock. Whereas some marketing suggests it’s even faster than that, and as you’re reaching for the door, it’s unlocking, so there’s no delay.

Again, that hasn’t been my experience. I'll arrive home and will usually have to stand in front of the door for a beat or two. It's quick, just not "in stride" quick. There are settings in the Schlage mobile app that you can disable UWB's auto-unlocking or change it to be delayed. (I made sure that wasn't active, by the way.)

I have an Aqara UWB Smart Lock U400 on another exterior door, and that one tends to unlock a tad faster, though it's close and the placements make it tricky to directly compare them.

Because UWB does know your speed and trajectory, it’s much more accurate and secure than Bluetooth locks. For example, it won’t unlock when you get close to it from inside the house—it's that precise. In the Home app, you can also turn off whether it unlocks when you approach from the left or right.

The design of the Schlage Sense Pro could have been better

Both of my teenage kids mentioned separately that they didn’t know how to lock the door after I installed the Sense Pro. Its lack of intuitiveness is one of my complaints with its design.

It’s not hard to lock once you know, but it’s definitely not clear. There’s no lock icon to help guide you. You need to tap at the top of the touchpad to lock it, even though it might seem like the centered “Schlage” logo would be an optimal spot. Through trial and error, the lower half of the touchpad does nothing.

I don’t mind the plain, personality-less design of the Sense Pro, but I also don’t love it. The inclusion of UWB means that you might not need to touch it or interact with it much. So, from that perspective, a stealth isn't crazy. But for kids and visitors, it might have been designed a little oversimplified.

You don't need to be scared of the battery life

The company advertises about six months per four AA batteries. But, of course, the number of times that you lock or unlock it per day can swing the real-world results. 

In my first nine days with the Sense Pro, the battery life dropped 4% to 96%. After 12 days, it was at 95%. In my first full two weeks with the lock, it was at 93%. Extrapolating that out, I’ll get about seven months of use before the batteries die completely.

There are a lot of warnings before the batteries are fully dead, so, in the past, with the Schlage Encode Plus lock, I would change them with between 7-10% battery life remaining.

The Sense Pro uses the same four AA battery configuration as the Encode Plus. I used that lock for years and could get a solid five months of use. With somewhere between a dozen and two dozen uses each day. I expect the same, if not slightly better, battery life from the new Sense Pro.

For comparison, I’ve got about four months of battery life with the Aqara U400 smart lock before it needed to be recharged.

You shouldn’t worry about being locked out of the Sense Pro if the batteries do die. On the bottom of the exterior lock is a USB-C port that you can plug a power bank into to give it enough juice to allow entry.

Previously, you’d need to find a 9V battery to juice the Encode Plus up. So, the addition of a USB-C port is nice.

Other smart lock options

I like the Level smart locks. The Nuki lock has been rock solid with a long battery life. But the UWB feature still puts the Sense Pro and the Aqara UWB Smart Lock U400 ahead of the others, for me.

Even though I’m not crazy about the design of the Sense Pro, I think it looks better than the U400’s utilitarian appearance. It’s a bit bigger too. That’s a lock that puts function over form. For the extra room it takes, it gives you a fingerprint sensor and a keyhole, in addition to its other wireless entry methods. I like that the U400 also has a rechargeable battery.

Each of those smart locks has its pros and cons, so it’s a bit of a toss-up. The deciding factor might be that the U400 is just over half the cost of the Sense Pro.

Should you buy the Schlage Sense Pro?

Trust plays a big role in which smart lock you buy for your home. If you need the Schlage name to feel more comfortable about the product you’re buying to secure your house, then the Sense Pro is the most advanced model available and comes with the company’s proven track record. 

But if you’re only looking for certain features, like UWB, for seamless entry into your home, then there’s at least one better value to be had.

Even though I test and install a lot of smart locks, I don’t put them all on my front door. That space is reserved for only the most reliable ones. While I have some quibbles with the design and I don’t love the price, the Sense Pro has already proven to be just as dependable as the previous model.