Best known for building deadbolts and entry locks for doors, Yale has a new Smart Delivery Box that’s designed to secure parcel deliveries. The box remains unlocked until a delivery person places one or more packages inside it, and then automatically locks to prevent package theft. The Wi-Fi-bridge-connected box then sends a notification to your smartphone, indicating a delivery has been made and secured.
Fabricated from a resin material, the box can be purchased with an optional smart keypad. With the keypad option, you can leave the box locked by default and provide the delivery person with the code needed to open it. This alternative provides the additional flexibility of allowing a family member, friend, or neighbor to access the box’s contents.
Yale Home
The Yale Smart Delivery Box (the Kent model is shown here) is designed to prevent package theft.
The smart box is available in two models: The slightly more stylish Kent, pictured above, has interior dimensions of 16 x 22 x 13 inches (HxWxD) and is priced at $279.99 or $329.99 with Yale’s Wi-Fi keypad. The Brighton has interior dimensions of 16.5 x 22.5 x 11.5 inches (HxWxD) and costs $229.99 or $279.99 with the keypad.
The Yale Smart Delivery Box can also be locked and unlocked remotely, via Wi-Fi and Yale’s app. To protect deliveries of perishable items, users can slip a $27.99 soft-sided cooler inside the box. And to prevent an audacious thief from making off with the entire box, you can either weight it with sand, or purchase a $12.99 steel cable tether kit to anchor it to an immovable object.
Yale Home
Install the Yale Smart Cabinet Lock and you’ll be notified each time the cabinet it’s installed in is accessed.
For securing items inside the house, the Yale Smart Cabinet Lock can be installed inside cabinets or drawers. It can be unlocked with Yale’s app on site or remotely and is designed to secure valuable items such as jewelry as well as important documents. It can also be used to prevent small children from gaining access to medicines, liquor, or cleaning supplies. Yale also touts its value for use in vacation rentals, to prevent guests from accessing certain items, as well as to secure cleaning supplies for maintenance workers.
The Smart Cabinet Lock is available in two configurations: Bluetooth ($79.99) and Wi-Fi ($129.99). As with smart delivery box, the owner gets a notification whenever the cabinet is opened. Yale says it will announce a third product in its new smart storage line—the Yale Smart Safe—in 2021.
Author: Michael Brown, Executive Editor, TechHive
Michael is TechHive's lead editor, with 30+ years of experience covering smart homes, home networking, and home audio/home theater. He holds a BA in Multimedia Journalism, authored the book Desktop Video Production, and was awarded Best Online Review by the Computer Press Association. Michael built a smart home in 2007 and used it as a real-world product-testing lab. Now living in the Pacific Northwest, he is converting his 1890 Victorian bungalow into a modern smart home. Michael has worked at CNET, PCWorld, Electronic Musician, and Maximum PC. As a freelancer, he contributed to New Media, Camcorder, MacWeek, and more.