Smartkey locks are a pain in more ways than regular pinned locks. I am a locksmith and when I first started hearing about these locks I asked Kwikset what happens when a person locks them self out of the house, their response was "the person needs to find alternate method of entry". So I asked does something like breaking out a window fall into that answer? Their reply "the person needs to find alternate method of entry". So I left it at that.
Some time later I read about a tool that could be used to open locked Smartkey locks (Major KTT-4 tool) it would not be possible for the lock to be re-keyed once this tool was used to open the lock. I purchased and used the tool with great success, even once on a sheriff lock out. I always let the people whose lock(s) i was going to open this way they should replace those locks and why.
Last year after breaking the blade on the tool I found two things one is that Major Manufacturing decided to discontinue manufacturing the KTT-4., and two, that Kwikset has redesigned the locks making it much tougher for tools like the KTT-4 to be used.
On another subject I had recently learned that people were having some failure issues with the Smartkey locks. I found this issue of keys not working right after I had re-keyed the lock. Maybe one key would work and another not, so I tried to re-key the lock again using the key that didn't work as my new code key, 99% of the time that worked. The other 1% I found there was a problem with the lock it self.
The last three times I had issues with Smartkey locks were one, I was called to a person who had a locked door needing to be opened, I saw it was a Smartkey and right away told the person I needed to drill it open; two the person was having problems opening a lock with a newly cut key it did not work at all, so I got my learn tool and re-keyed the lock using the new key, problem solved; three I had a returning customer who had lost the key, so I told her I had a tool to re-key it with again problem solved.
Not to get to far off the track I recently re-keyed a house that had one lever Schlage SecureKey lock and it would not stay re-keyed. Once re-keyed the key failed to open the lock. After tying several things I decided to replace the plug re-keying it to the rest of the house, again problem solved.
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