What Smart Lock Installation Actually Involves — Beyond Swapping Hardware
Most homeowners assume smart lock installation is simply removing the old deadbolt and bolting in a new one. In practice, a professional door lock installation involves far more: measuring the backset and cross-bore diameter, checking door thickness and hinge-side clearance, verifying that the door frame and strike plate alignment are tight enough to meet the new lock's tolerances, and — for connected models — planning the network or hub pairing before the lock is ever mounted. Get any of these steps wrong and you end up with a lock that looks installed but binds on every turn or drops off your Wi-Fi network within days.
Terminology matters here. A 'backset' is the distance from the door edge to the center of the bore hole — typically 2-3/8 or 2-3/4 inches — and mismatching it is one of the most common DIY errors we correct. A 'cross-bore' is the large circular hole through the door face, while the 'edge bore' is the smaller hole on the door's latch edge. Smart locks also introduce new vocabulary: Z-Wave and Zigbee are wireless protocols used by hub-based systems, while Bluetooth Low Energy handles short-range keypad unlocking without any hub at all. Our technicians speak this language fluently and translate it into plain English for every Anderson homeowner or property manager we serve.


