The new Ultraloq smart lock uses your face and palm to let you in

Xthings is heading into CES with a bunch of new gear, including two new smart locks and a few smart security cameras. The Ultraloq Bolt Sense is definitely the most interesting of the bunch. It’s a relatively compact smart lock that combines facial recognition and palm vein authentication for touchless access, without resorting to an app.

While palm scanning is still relatively new in the consumer market, Xthings claims it’s more reliable than fingerprint scanning because it actually reads the vein pattern under your skin, so you don’t care if your hands are wet or dirty. Since vein scanning uses near infrared light, it doesn’t matter if the color is dark, it should still work.

The Bolt Sense has built-in Wi-Fi, and Xthings says Matter support is planned. But since it’s not expected to ship until Q2, there’s still plenty of time to resolve that. The company is also announcing the Latch 7 Pro, which should launch soon (in the first quarter), and although it lacks fancy palm-reading tech, it will support Matter-over-Thread and Aliro.

Xthings will also be showing off the Ulticam IQ V2 at CES, its first Matter-enabled camera.

But even more interesting is Ulticam HaLow. It will be one of the first security cameras on the market to support Wi-Fi HaLow (802.11ah). HaLow uses sub-GHz signals for greater range and wall penetration, but at the cost of bandwidth. While Xthings didn’t mention exactly the maximum range of the new Ulticam, the HaLow is rated at up to 0.6 miles in normal conditions. This makes it ideal for larger properties. Although HaLow was a big hit at CES in 2016, it hasn’t had much success in the real world. Instead of having to worry about tracking down a specialized router, Xthings includes a dedicated hub with the Ulticam HaLow.

If you’re more concerned about capturing crystal-clear video even on the darkest nights, Xthings is also launching the Ulticam IQ Floodlight, which combines an AI-powered security camera with a 2,000-lumen floodlight. However, you won’t get the same half-mile range with a standard Wi-Fi radio.