Going online to lock your house

What if locking the front door of your home while you’re away were as easy as hopping onto the Internet?

At the CEDIA Expo in Denver last week, Ingersoll-Rand Co.’s Schlage unit showed off door locks that can be wirelessly activated or opened via the Internet, from a mobile phone or from a computer.

The battery-operated locks have keypads that are accessed with four-digit codes (or old-fashioned keys, as a backup). Users who forget to lock a door and want to enter their code remotely can do so via the Internet or an application added to their mobile phones.

The company says the wireless signals sent to the locks are encrypted.

A Schlage kit that includes the lock and the wireless bridge to communicate with the locks sells for $299, plus there’s a $13 monthly fee to use the applications that let the locks be controlled remotely. The system, which Schlage bills as the first of its kind, will be available in late October.