Philips 5000-series smart deadbolt review: To open, just scan the hand

It’s official: In 2025, fingerprints are out, palm veins are in.

With its Home Access Smart Deadbolt 5000 Series, Philips joins the smart-lock club that lets you scan the vein patterns in your hand instead of a fingerprint to provide access to your home. While I was originally a skeptic that this technology would be anything more than a gimmick, it turns out that palm vein reading—at least so far—is actually really effective. With both the TCL D1 Pro and Philips 5000-series reviewed here, I’ve been getting much better results than with often finicky fingerprint scanners.

Technology aside, let’s look at what Philips has provided here in this latest entry into its venerable Home Access smart lock series.

From a hardware perspective, Philips has not had the greatest level of success, and though we’re years into the company’s efforts in this space, it somehow continues to make the same bad design decisions. There’s no getting around the size of the unit. Unlike the relatively demure Philips 4000 Series, the 5000 Series is downright enormous, with an exterior escutcheon spanning more than 7.5 inches in height and approaching the same on the interior escutcheon.

Setup and installation

Christopher Null/Foundry

The exterior escutcheon includes a numeric touchscreen and a large doorbell button; otherwise, there is a huge amount of unused real estate on the front panel. The doorbell button swivels to the side to reveal a physical keyhole, but it takes some doing to maneuver it out of the way; don’t count on your kids being able to do this successfully. Curiously, no emergency power option is provided in case of dead batteries, so make sure you keep one of those physical keys handy just in case.

The lock carries an ANSI grade 2 certification for physical security, and it does indeed feel sturdy, made largely from an aluminum alloy. I tested the unit in matte black color; a satin nickel version (relegated to the border of the lock) is also available. We explain ANSI and BHMA lock ratings in the article at the preceding link.

This review is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best smart locks.

The lock connects as expected, with a mounting plate attached to the exterior escutcheon via two long bolts. A single power cable threads through the plate to the interior escutcheon; but bizarrely, the hole in the plate for the cable is just a bit too narrow for it to snake through easily. I had to use pliers to compress the plastic around the connector to allow it to squeeze through. The bigger problem, however, is attaching the interior escutcheon to the mounting plate.

Philips has long relied on sliding clips on the sides of the escutcheon to connect the two pieces together, and I think I’ve complained about them every time I’ve reviewed a Philips lock. I’m going to do it again here: This clip concept is awful, as it’s almost impossible to get the escutcheon dead flat against the door unless the power cable is perfectly positioned. If it’s the slightest bit out of place, the escutcheon butts out and keeps the clips from being able to latch. I spent at least 10 minutes trying to position the cable just so before I got it close enough for the clips to finally be able to be muscled into place. Two additional screws—a newer and thankful addition to the design—help keep it there.

Christopher Null/Foundry

Two additional pieces of hardware are included in the box: An optional magnetic door sensor that tells the Philips app whether the door is ajar, and a separate doorbell chime which gets plugged in an outlet inside the house. I’ll talk more about the chime in a bit.

The 5000 Series is uniquely powered by four 3V batteries (included), though Philips does not specify an expected lifespan before they must be replaced. Once the batteries are in place, the electronic portion of the lock setup is a snap. The Philips Home Access app automatically discovered the lock once I logged into it, though there’s also a QR code on the backside of the battery hatch if that doesn’t happen. The lock connects directly to 2.4GHz Wi-Fi networks with a simple onboarding process.

Using the Philips Home Access app

The Philips Home Access app, after years of development, offers a well-aged maturity, and while it lacks much in the way of flair, it works well enough. A central button locks and unlocks the door, while tabs below let you check the logs (both locks and unlocks are tracked), add PINs, or add palm scans. The two means of authentication are entirely separate.

While some apps let you configure access on a per-user basis—assigning various PINs and scans to an individual—Home Access doesn’t: every PIN and scan must be managed separately. That can get confusing if you have a large number of users. Note that PINs can be configured as permanent, recurring, or set to expire at a certain time, but palm scans always provide 24/7 access. This is a shift from the way Philips treats fingerprint scans on other locks, which can be configured the same way as PINs, and it’s something prospective buyers might want to keep in mind. Up to 100 PINs and 50 palm scans can be stored on the lock, along with an unlimited number of one-time PIN codes.

Extra features include automatic locking (elapsed times ranging from 10 seconds to 3 minutes) which can be configured to work in conjunction with the door sensor, to prevent the door from attempting to lock while it’s open. A duress system lets you preface any PIN with “911” to notify a person of your choosing (via email) that you’re in trouble—although it can’t actually call 911 for you. Finally, Alexa and Google Assistant are both supported if you want to add voice control features to the lock.

Christopher Null/Foundry

Initially I thought the lock was malfunctioning during my testing because it would randomly open at certain times when I was nearby. It turns out this is a feature, not a bug, called “Grab and go” mode, which instructs the lock to open when it is approached from inside the house. This didn’t work very reliably in my testing—hence my confusion at the semi-random activation—but it’s at least an interesting concept, albeit one that doesn’t seem very wise in the end. I, for one, like to keep my doors locked by default. Flipping the thumb-turn as you exit just isn’t that big of a hassle.

The chime—optional but essential if you’re using the doorbell feature—is a small device that plugs into a wall outlet. Onboard controls on either side let you change its volume (on a scale of one to five) and select the specific chime melody you prefer out of a daunting 38 choices. The chime must be paired separately with the lock by adding it as an accessory in the Home Access app, but this is a quick process that takes no more than a minute or two to complete.

Using the Philips 5000-series smart lock day to day

Christopher Null/Foundry

In daily use, I found all this to work well, and I didn’t encounter any trouble with the lock aside from my initial confusion around the “Grab and go” mode. The palm reader is quick and accurate, and while it was flawless if I held my hand upright, as I’d initially registered it, it was also sometimes (but only rarely) able to read my palm when positioned upside-down or sideways.

The lock detects you as you approach it, illuminating the ring around the doorbell button with a blue light, while also flashing the numeral 0 on the touchpad. This latter feature is a little disconcerting as it makes the lock look like it’s stuck in an error mode. Having the keypad fully illuminate would have been, in my mind, a more intuitive design decision.

Should you buy a Philips 5000-series smart lock?

The lock carries a ghastly $380 MSRP; but at press time, it was on sale for a mere $250. That’s still expensive, but at least more in the ballpark of other high-end smart locks. The TCL D1 Pro, on the other hand, was a further $100 off that sale price—at least for now. That said, the draw of palm vein scanning is appealing, and there are enough bells and whistles in this lock to make it worth considering.

My suggestion to Philips would be to offer a less expensive version without the doorbell—or to just drop the doorbell completely. Any homeowner willing to invest in a lock this luxe will want a doorbell camera to keep tabs on the house, and they probably already have one.