What an ANSI Grade 1 Smart Lock Claim Means, and Which Makers Publish a Grade at All

We have not tested any lock named here. Everything below comes from the standards themselves, the BHMA Certified Products Directory and the makers’ own pages, all read on October 1, 2026. We chose which locks to name by one rule: a product had to appear in the directory by model number, or carry a grade on the maker’s own page, so a reader can look it up and get the same answer.

This is one of the few consumer categories where the marketing claim has a public, searchable counterpart. Anyone can type a brand into the BHMA directory and see which standard a lock was certified against, in which edition year, and at what grade. Knowing which listings quote it correctly takes about five minutes.

Trend Signal

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1. Emerging
2. Rising
3. Mainstream
4. Peaking
5. Cooling

A published grade is checkable, and the directory shows how few locks carry one

BHMA lists ANSI/BHMA A156.36-2020 for auxiliary locks and A156.39-2025 and A156.40-2025 for residential locksets and deadbolts. Querying the certified products directory brand by brand on October 1, 2026 shows most consumer smart lock brands listed under finishes only, or not at all.

Our editorial reading of the cited data, not a forecast. How it is scored

By the numbers

• Grade 3Grade listed for the Aqara Smart Lock U400 under ANSI/BHMA A156.36-2020BHMA
• 400,000Opening and closing cycles a Grade A residential dead latch must pass under A156.40-2025BHMA
• 1,350 lbfLoad applied to the door against the deadbolt in one A156.40-2025 security testBHMA
• 2023Edition year of ANSI/UL 294 for access control system units, dated May 24 of that yearUL Standards and Engagement

Two grading systems, and the labels do not mean the same thing

BHMA maintains the A156 series of American National Standards, and its own page explains that many of them define product grades 1, 2 or 3, with 1 the highest. That is the scale people have in mind when they type ANSI Grade 1, and for deadbolts it comes from ANSI/BHMA A156.36-2020, Auxiliary Locks.

The residential standards work differently. ANSI/BHMA A156.40-2025, Residential Deadbolts, and A156.39-2025, Residential Locksets and Latches, grade a product A, B or C on each of three attributes, so a certified lock carries something like AAA rather than a single number. BHMA’s summary of A156.40-2025 says a Grade A residential dead latch must survive 400,000 opening and closing cycles, and that seventeen security tests are specified, one loading the door against the deadbolt with 1,350 pounds of force. The A156.39-2025 summary describes eleven security tests, with a latch that must withstand 800 pounds to reach Grade A.

Neither scale substitutes for the other. A smart deadbolt listed Grade 2 under A156.36-2020 and one listed BBB under A156.40-2025 went through different test programs. Read the standard number first and the grade second.

Grade 1 and Grade A are different standards. Ask which one.

What the certified directory lists for locks people are buying now

We queried the BHMA Certified Products Directory brand by brand on October 1, 2026 and pulled every listing under the lock standards. Participation is voluntary and open to any manufacturer, and compliance is verified by independent third-party laboratories, so absence means a company has not certified that product, not that the product failed anything.

Grades for consumer smart locks cluster at 2 and 3 on the auxiliary scale, while plain mechanical deadbolts from the old-line brands sit at Grade 1 or AAA. Schlage’s mechanical B664P, B764P and B864P are listed Grade 1 under A156.36-2020; its Sense Pro, model BE889, is listed under A156.40 as E015BAA, meaning B for strength and A for durability and finish.

The absences are as informative as the entries. Anker Innovations, the parent of eufy, appears only under A156.18, the materials and finishes standard. Yale, listed under Fortune Brands Innovations, appears for bored locks, cylinders, interconnected and mortise locks and finishes, but not for auxiliary locks, residential deadbolts or electrified locking devices.

Lock as listed in the directory	Standard and edition year	Published grade
Aqara Smart Lock U400, models DL-D06D to DL-D17D	A156.36, 2020 edition, function E0153	Grade 3
TP-Link Tapo DL110 and DL130	A156.25, 2023 edition, listed as A156.36 G2	Grade 2
TP-Link Tapo DL100, DL105 and DLW10	A156.25, 2023 edition, listed as A156.36 G3	Grade 3
Dreame NAVO Smart Lock A10, model B311	A156.36 2020 edition and A156.40 2025 edition	Grade 2 and B for all three
myQ Video Smart Lock, MYQL90AXXB	A156.36, 2020 edition, function E0152	Grade 2
Kwikset 1000 UNITE	A156.36, 2020 edition, function E0152	Grade 2
Level Lock, Level Lock+ and Level Lock Pro	A156.40, 2020 edition, function E015AAA	A for all three
Schlage Sense Pro, model BE889	A156.40, 2020 edition, function E015BAA	B strength, A durability, A finish

UL 294 and UL 1034 measure something else again

Electronic locks pick up a second family of standards, and the numbers do not map onto BHMA grades. ANSI/UL 294, Access Control System Units, is in its eighth edition dated May 24, 2023. Its scope sets minimum requirements for construction, performance and operation, with tiered characteristics across four levels of security performance from Level I, the lowest, to Level IV. That edition added requirements covering remote access and firmware upgrades.

UL 1034, Burglary-Resistant Electric Locking Mechanisms, is in its sixth edition, last revised and ANSI-approved on January 15, 2026, and rates a mechanism on three elements: static strength of 500, 1,000 or 1,500 pounds-force, dynamic strength of 33, 50 or 70 foot-pounds-force, and endurance of 100,000 or 250,000 cycles.

A residential smart deadbolt usually encounters neither. UL 294 is written around access control systems and UL 1034 around the electric locking mechanisms used with them, so a Level IV claim on a home lock listing deserves a look at what was certified.

What a grade does not tell you

A BHMA grade is a laboratory result on a defined list of attributes. It says nothing about the radio, the app, the account or the firmware, and the Federal Trade Commission has already acted once on that gap. In May 2020 the Commission gave final approval, on a 5-0 vote, to a settlement with Tapplock over allegations that the company falsely claimed its internet-connected locks were designed to be unbreakable. Security researchers had identified both physical and electronic vulnerabilities, and the FTC alleged the company had no security program in place.

Nor does a grade appear in the recall record. Our searches of the CPSC database on October 1, 2026 returned nine distinct door hardware recalls, and the recurring hazard is a door that could not be unlocked from inside. The failures regulators act on are not the failures a strength test looks for.

So the right use of a grade is narrow and real. It tells you a named model passed a published cycle, strength and finish program at a stated level and edition year, verified by a third-party lab. It says nothing about how long the firmware will be patched, which is a separate published number we track in smart home gear switched off by its maker.

A grade is a test result on named attributes, not a forecast of what will happen at your door.

How to check a claim in five minutes

Start with the model number, because the directory is organized by model. TP-Link prints the grade on its Tapo lock pages: the DL130 states BHMA Grade 2 and the DL105 Grade 3, and both match the directory.

When a page says only Grade 1 with no standard, search the directory by brand and see which standards the company has certified anything under. If the brand appears only under A156.18, it has certified finishes, not lock performance. If it does not appear at all, there is nothing to look up.

Finally, read the edition year. Several locks are still certified against A156.40-2020 while the current edition is A156.40-2025, and a few, including the Dreame NAVO A10 and Schlage’s BE375, carry 2025 entries. For the radio side, see Aliro locks and phone-as-key and what Matter added for closures.

What to watch next

• Whether more brands certify against A156.40-2025 rather than the 2020 edition, which the directory shows in its standard year column
• ANSI/BHMA A156.47, Electronic Input Devices, which BHMA’s January 2026 tracking chart lists as a new standard in development
• Whether listings start naming the A156 standard number alongside the grade, the one change that would make the claim checkable at a glance

Where to start

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More: Smart Home trends and how the Trend Signal is scored.

Questions readers ask

Is there such a thing as an ANSI Grade 1 smart lock?

There are smart locks certified under ANSI/BHMA A156.36-2020, which uses the Grade 1, 2 and 3 scale, but in the BHMA directory on October 1, 2026 the consumer electronic models we found sat at Grade 2 or Grade 3. The Grade 1 entries were mechanical deadbolts, including Schlage B664P, B764P and B864P.

What is the difference between Grade 1 and Grade AAA?

Different standards. Grade 1, 2 and 3 come from the commercial auxiliary lock standard A156.36-2020. The A, B and C letters come from the residential standards A156.39-2025 and A156.40-2025, which grade strength, durability and finish separately.

Does a BHMA grade cover the electronics?

No. The A156 grades cover cycle, operational, strength, security and finish performance of the hardware. Electronic access control has its own standards, ANSI/UL 294 in its eighth edition of May 24, 2023 and UL 1034 in its sixth edition, last revised January 15, 2026.

What does it mean if a brand is not in the directory at all?

That it has not submitted products to the program, which BHMA describes as voluntary and open to any manufacturer. It is not a test result, but it does mean any grade printed on the packaging has nothing public behind it.