Locksmith giant Assa Abloy acquires another smart lock startup

Assa Abloy, the world's largest lock maker since the turn of the 21st century, has not refrained from acquiring competitors and would-be competitors as it strives to expand the access control market. California-based smart lock brand Level Lock is the Swedish behemoth’stwelfth acquisition this year.

Level Home, Inc., the (former) parent company of Level Lock will now focus on its multifamily smart apartment platform, Level M, albeit under the new name Ambient Technologies. Level announced in itspress releasethat co-founders John Martin and Ken Goto will be moving over to Assa Abloy, ostensibly to continue working on Level Lock, while Mike Rovito remains CEO of Level M. Neither Level nor Assa Abloy has disclosed the value of the acquisition.

The uniqueness of a Level smart lock is in the innovative minimalist design of its deadbolt mechanism. By embedding the electronic components into the lock itself, Level smart locks eliminate the need for the bulky, external housing that accompanies other digital locks. Consequently, the total footprint of the lock is less than half the size of the industry average – small enough to be almost completely unobtrusive from either side of a door. This makes a Level smart lock virtually indistinguishable from a traditional non-smart deadbolt.

Level’s “invisible technology” is by no means cheap; its retrofit WiFi bolt (available on Amazon)retails for significantly costlier than mostall-in-one smart locks from companies likeAqara or Yale, which often include keypad access for less than the flagship price tag of the Level Lock Plus Connect. Level achieved its premium status via relentless R&D and the design expertise of former Apple employees. Nevertheless, the brand has had limited influence on the smart lock scene, making only$16 million in sales in the past year.

For Assa Abloy, Level Lock is an excellent addition to its 190 strong portfolio, which also includes large US brands such as Kwikset and Baldwin. This acquisition could imply that Level Bolt and Lock Plus users will finally get the Matter support that Level has been slow to provide. However, the locksmith cartel is more likely to integrate the engineering patents of Level smart locks into its existing array of products, just as it did after acquiring August Home in 2014.

Assa Abloy had to give up August in order to acquire the Hardware and Home Improvement (HHI) division of Spectrum Brands which consisted of massive smart lock makers such as Kwikset and Baldwin. The DOJ insisted that Assa Abloy's owning that many locksmith manufacturers was tantamount to becoming “a near-monopoly” that would result in its only other significant competition having less than 50% market share. As a result, August and the US branch of Yale were sold off to Fortune Brands in an $800 million deal.

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Barely a year later, Assa Abloy has returned to snapping up access control startups like Level Lock. While it is improbable for the DOJ to take issue with the latest purchase, especially given the small scale of the company, Assa Abloy is betting on Level’s patents to strengthen its own smart lock offerings by providing customers with an “easy transition from mechanical to digital access solutions”.

Controlling what is arguably the most innovative locksmith brand naturally puts Assa Abloy far ahead of any other single competitor in the access control space. If the future of the lock is digital, the world's biggest lock maker has already staked its claim.

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