“To me, it's like the bandages on the wound versus fixing the wound. So, yeah, you hide a key. Some of them have 9-volt batteries. Well, where's the 9-volt battery? They have a USB-C cable. Where's the USB-C cable? I think there's been a lot of bandages put around the problem, when the reality is we don't even have a key, and we don't have a key because you never need one.”
Rich On Tech · October 2026
Context
Rich asked about Ring's new smart lock, which has a hand-crank power dial to revive it when the battery dies. Jamie explains why other smart locks' backups (hidden keys, 9-volt batteries, USB-C cables) don't really solve the dead-battery problem.
Transcript
So this is like, okay, because this did happen to me once where I had to, my lock died and I From that day forward, I was like, oh, we need to hide like a key somewhere.
So have you heard this before?
We heard it many, many times. To me, it's like the bandages on the wound versus fixing the wound. And so, yeah, you hide a key. Some of them have 9-volt batteries. They turn them back on. Well, where's the 9-volt battery? They have a USB-C cable. Where's the USB-C cable? So I think there's been a lot of bandages put around the problem when the reality is we don't even have a key, and we don't have a key because you never need one. Because you can always just turn the front of the power dial and get the lock to turn back on and then use a digital way to enter, which is kind of the whole reason why you bought the lock in the first place.
How are you actually making it get electricity in there?
It's exactly what it is. There's like a small, tiny little generator motor that's hooked up to the dial. And when you turn it back and forth, it just generates enough electricity. Smart locks actually use a very small amount of electricity.
For a short time.
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