If you have been holding off on a smart lock installation in Vancouver because the technology felt half-baked — the apps were clunky, the locks did not play nice with the rest of your smart home, and you would need a new one the moment you switched phones — that hesitation made sense. For most of the last decade, smart locks were exactly that: smart in name only. That is about to change in a very big way.

A new report from Future Market Insights projects the global smart lock market will nearly triple — from $3.5 billion today to $9.4 billion by 2036. That is not because locks suddenly got better at being locks. It is because two new standards are about to make them actually work together, and the rest of the smart home industry is taking notice.

What Is Actually Driving the Smart Lock Boom

The growth is not about hardware. The hardware is fine. It is about standards — specifically, Matter and Aliro.

Matter is the cross-ecosystem smart home protocol backed by Apple, Google, Amazon, and Samsung. If you have ever been frustrated that your Matter smart lock only worked with one assistant — Alexa, but not HomeKit, or Google Home, but not SmartThings — Matter is what fixes that. A Matter-certified lock works with all of them. No more lock-in.

Aliro is the newer standard you have not heard of yet, but you will want to. Originally developed for enterprise access control (think office buildings and secure facilities), Aliro brings NFC and credential-based access to residential keyless entry smart home installations. That means tap-to-unlock with your phone or watch, secure credential sharing with guests and contractors, and a path to using your door lock as a unified access point for your whole property.

Together, these two standards are doing what the first wave of smart locks could not: turning isolated gadgets into mainstream home infrastructure.

What This Means for Vancouver Homeowners

If you are a homeowner in the Lower Mainland thinking about a smart lock upgrade, here is the practical takeaway:

If you buy a lock that supports Matter and Aliro today, you can install it once and forget about it. Five years from now, it will still work — even if you switch from iPhone to Android, change which voice assistant you use, or swap out your smart home hub. That was not true for any smart lock sold before 2024.

It also means the smart lock can finally be a part of a larger system, not an island. Lock the front door and your hallway lights dim, the thermostat goes to "away" mode, the security cameras arm, and the music pauses. That is a routine, not a gimmick, and it only works when the lock speaks the same language as everything else.

What to Look for When You Are Shopping

Not every "Matter-compatible" lock delivers the same experience. Before you buy, ask:

Is the lock actually Matter-certified, or just Matter-ready? Certification is the bar; "ready" often means a firmware update that may or may not arrive.
Does it support Aliro, or is Aliro coming later? For future-proofing, you want both.
What happens if the manufacturer disappears? This is the question nobody asked in 2017 — and it is the reason so many smart home products are now paperweights. Standards-based gear outlives the brand that made it. We have written about this in detail: a strong network backbone is what makes any standards-based device reliable.
Who is installing it? A smart lock is only as good as the installation. A misaligned bolt, a weak WiFi connection at the door, or a misconfigured network can turn a $400 lock into a frustration. Professional install matters.

The Bottom Line on the $9.4B Smart Lock Market

The smart lock is no longer a gadget — it is becoming infrastructure. The same way you do not think twice about your electrical panel or your hot water tank, in five years you will not think twice about a Matter + Aliro smart lock. The market knows it. That is the $9.4B number.

If you have been waiting for the technology to mature before upgrading, this is your signal. The standards are here. The hardware is solid. The only question is which lock to pick — and who is going to install it properly.

Ready to upgrade to a Matter + Aliro smart lock? Talk to us about your front door and we will spec the right lock for your network, your existing system, and the way your household actually lives.