New Smart Lock Platform Comparison Report for Lock Manufacturers Evaluates TTLOCK, TUYA, and KORELOCK. Which should you choose?

Rob Goff, VP of Product and Co-Founder of KoreLock, has created a practical comparison to help lock manufacturers, OEMs, and access control brands evaluate smart lock technology platforms. The report examines TTLOCK, TUYA, and KORELOCK, outlining each provider’s technology, business model, and strategies for launching connected locks.

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Which Smart Lock platform should lock manufacturers choose? The short answer.

TTLOCK is a China-based platform that offers the fastest and lowest-cost path to a connected lock, as long as the lock gets designed around one of their off-the-shelf boards. It works with Alexa and Google Home. The catch: their locks are Bluetooth-only, so remote access, voice control, and automation all require TTLock gateway hardware, and the product lives inside a shared app and cloud the manufacturer does not control.

TUYA is a China-based platform that has the strongest smart-home position of the three. Tuya holds Matter certification for a door lock, so the product appears natively in Matter ecosystems without a bridge, and Tuya's module model lets a manufacturer keep its existing board and MCU. That matters for a residential or short-term rental lock, and is largely irrelevant for an office door or a storage lock. The catch: locks are one category among thousands on a horizontal IoT platform, so credential depth, audit trails, and commercial account structures run shallower than a dedicated access platform, and with thousands of manufacturers on the platform, no single roadmap request carries weight.

KORELOCK is a US-based Smart Lock platform that gives you a purpose-built OEM platform for lock manufacturers. Lock manufacturers who want to own their brand, customer relationships, and white-label mobile and web apps, and offer US-based management and commercial-grade access control, with a team to build custom features. The catch: this is a platform partnership rather than a module purchase, and a typical project runs about six months to production-ready, most of it new board design for the manufacturer's own lock. That being said, KoreLock offers the same "off-the-shelf" integration module model that Tuya offers, but in our experience, most projects need more custom design work.

The choice comes down to two questions. How much of the product has to be shaped around someone else's hardware and roadmap, and who owns the customer once the lock is connected?

(If you're a step earlier, deciding whether to use any platform versus building your own stack, start with our report: “The Great Debate: Should Lock Manufacturers Build Their Own Smart Lock Technology or Buy a Platform?”. This article assumes you've already concluded what most manufacturers do: the platform math wins.)

Does Your Lock Need to Live in a Smart Home Ecosystem?

Start with one question: is this lock going on a residential front door? If it is, this section decides your platform. If it isn't, you can stop worrying about Matter.

Matter, Alexa, Google Home, and Apple Home matter when the person using the lock is a consumer in their own home. That is the residential front door, and short-term rentals by extension. At every other door, a business manages access for other people, and the lock has to work with the software that business already runs: an access control system for an office or warehouse, a property management system for a hotel or an apartment building. Nobody is adding a warehouse door to Apple Home.

So the question is not whether a platform supports Matter. It is which system your lock has to talk to: a homeowner's phone, or the software a business runs its building on. A platform built for the first is not automatically good at the second. The second needs credential hierarchies, audit trails, and account structures that span a portfolio.

This may not hold forever. The Connectivity Standards Alliance said in August 2026 that it is broadening Matter beyond the smart home into commercial buildings, though the categories it named were lighting, occupancy, energy, and environmental controls rather than locks. Access control is being standardized separately, under Aliro. For now, Matter's lock story is a residential one.

The expectation of connectivity did follow the lock off the front door, into offices, warehouses, cabinets, gates, and storage. The expectation of ecosystem membership did not.

The residential front door is also the most crowded category in the industry, with every major lock brand, a long list of consumer entrants, and page after page of white-labeled commodity locks competing on the same ecosystem features. Every other door is less contested. A manufacturer building its product around Matter support is competing in the saturated half of the market. The Volume Economics section below picks up this thread.

Platform Definition: These are the ten layers of a Smart Lock platform.

Before comparing, let’s define what a platform should include. A complete smart lock platform spans ten layers:

1. Embedded lock hardware

2. Reader hardware (NFC and card readers, keypads, QR scanners, Bluetooth)

3. Lock firmware

4. Cloud infrastructure with a digital twin per device

5. Credential ecosystem, including mobile keys and wallet credentials

6. Device and cloud security

7. OTA update management

8. Partner integration APIs

9. White-label web and mobile apps

10. Factory tooling and QA test systems

And this is the conservative version. It doesn't count regulatory certification (FCC, CE, UL, Bluetooth qualification, and now cybersecurity requirements like the EU's RED), fleet lifecycle tooling for commissioning, support, and RMA, or the machinery behind recurring revenue: managing subscriptions, gating features by tier, and actually billing for it.

Keep this ten-layer Smart Lock platform feature list in mind, because TTLOCK, TUYA, and KORELOCK cover different portions of it, and every layer a platform doesn't cover becomes your problem.

Summary: Smart Lock platforms side-by-side comparison

Dimension	TTLOCK	TUYA	KORELOCK
Built for	Companies targeting the crowded budget residential market	Smart-home device makers	Lock manufacturers building connected lock business
Platform coverage (of 10 layers)	Modules, firmware, cloud, shared app	Modules, cloud, app frameworks, ecosystem	All ten layers including reader hardware and factory tooling
Hardware model	Design the lock around an off-the-shelf TTLock board	Add a Tuya module to hardware you already have	Ready-made modules, or a custom board designed around your lock
Brand & customer relationship	Shared TTLock app; end users are platform users	OEM app options on shared platform	Fully white-label apps; end users are manufacturer's customers
Data hosting	TTLock-operated cloud (China-based)	Tuya-operated cloud with regional data centers. Parent company headquartered in China.	KoreLock AWS, US-based; dedicated AWS IoT instance available
Device security	Varies by factory; no public disclosures	Module-level; consumer smart-home oriented	Secure boot, signed OTA, EAL 6+ secure element, mTLS
White-label mobile app	SDK or OEM app on TTLock infrastructure	SDK or OEM app on Tuya infrastructure	Fully white-label lock brand-owned apps as default model
Mobile & wallet credentials	Proprietary eKeys	Ecosystem app credentials	Mobile keys, PIN, NFC/card, plus wallet credentials via partners
Custom feature development	Roadmap outside manufacturer control	Enterprise-scale, slow-moving	Nimble US team; customer-driven features
Access control depth	Strong for rentals/residential	Consumer smart-home oriented	Commercial-grade multifamily, hospitality, retail, SMB, enterprise
Smart-home ecosystem (residential, STR)	Alexa and Google Home; gateway hardware required	Native Matter, certified	Not a focus; API-driven integrations instead
Property & building systems (commercial, multifamily, hospitality)	Rental-oriented features; limited beyond that	Consumer smart-home oriented	PMS, building automation, and partner APIs
Minimum viable volume	High-volume commodity economics	Scale-oriented	Built for long tail; 5-50k unit products viable
Engineering & support	China-based	China-based, scale-oriented	US-based, partnership model
Time to market	Fastest, using an existing board design	Fast, adding a module to existing hardware	Six months to production-ready, typically including new board design
Best for	Budget residential locks, STR channel	Locks inside smart-home lineup	Lock brands serving commercial & emerging markets

 

Deep dive: What each Smart Lock platform actually is

TTLOCK (Sciener – China-based)

TTLOCK is a vertical SaaS system based in China, built specifically for smart locks: PCBAs and modules, the shared TTLOCK mobile app, a cloud API, and an SDK. Hundreds of lock factories ship TTLOCK-compatible hardware, which is why it dominates budget and mid-tier OEM projects and short-term rental deployments.

Strengths

• Near-zero software development

• Fastest time to market, provided the lock is designed around an available PCBA

• Mature rental-oriented features (timed PINs, one-time codes, eKeys, gateways)

• Lowest cost of the three

• Works with Alexa and Google Home

  
  

Limitations

• Your product runs inside TTLOCK 's app and cloud unless you fund SDK-based custom development.

• Your end users are TTLOCK's, not yours, and your reputation rides on a shared app you do not control.

• Your lock behaves like every other TTLOCK lock, so differentiation is minimal.

• Remote access, voice control, and smart-home bridging all require TTLOCK gateway hardware, because the locks themselves are Bluetooth-only. Every connected feature adds a second device to the bill of materials, a second SKU for the channel to stock, and a second product for support to troubleshoot.

• Measured against the ten layers, TTLOCK covers modules, firmware, cloud, and a shared app. Brand ownership, custom features, and commercial-grade account structures are out of reach, and building a SaaS revenue layer or an enterprise offering on top hits a ceiling fast.

• There is a transparency problem. In March 2024, CERT/CC published VU#949046 covering eight CVEs across Sciener's lock firmware, the Gateway G2, and the TTLock app, including encryption downgrade, non-unique AES keys, and unauthenticated firmware updates. The advisory records that CERT/CC received no statement from the vendor. We could not find a public customer list, infrastructure details, or security response process, which becomes a problem the first time a commercial buyer sends a vendor questionnaire.

TUYA (China-based)

TUYA is a horizontal IoT platform-as-a-service based in China. Smart locks are one vertical inside an ecosystem spanning lighting, cameras, and appliances. It provides connectivity modules, cloud services, app frameworks (including OEM app paths), and integrations with Alexa, Google Home, and Matter.

Strengths

• Native Matter support rather than a bridge. TUYA holds Matter certification for a door lock in the Connectivity Standards Alliance database, certified January 2025 and running Matter over Thread. For a lock that needs to appear in Matter ecosystems without additional hardware, this is a genuine advantage and the clearest reason to choose TUYA.

• Large ecosystem and smart-home interoperability, including Alexa and Google Home.

• A module model that lets a manufacturer keep its existing board and MCU rather than replacing them.

• A reasonable fit when your lock is one node in a broader smart-home portfolio.

  
  

Limitations

• Matter standardizes how a lock talks to a smart home, and stops there. It does not supply the commercial layers an access control business runs on: account hierarchies across properties and portfolios, audit trails a buyer's security team will accept, or property management system integration. Those stay the manufacturer's problem.

• Not lock-first. Credential hierarchies, audit requirements, and commercial account structures run shallower than dedicated access platforms, and reader hardware, factory tooling, and lock-specific QA are not what a horizontal platform does.

• With thousands of brand customers and enormous scale, customer-specific feature development is not the model. You adapt to Tuya, not the reverse.

• Tuya hosts North American and European data in regional AWS and Google Cloud data centers. But the platform is still owned and operated by a company headquartered in China, and in our experience, that ownership is a common objection from North American and European commercial buyers, especially on projects with security or procurement reviews.

KORELOCK (US-based)

KORELOCK is a turnkey US-based OEM platform built exclusively for lock manufacturers and access control providers. It covers all ten platform layers mentioned above. The design goal: a manufacturer converts its existing offline electronic locks into connected smart locks under its own brand, with its own customer relationships.

Strengths: built for the lock manufacturer business model.

• You own the brand, the app identity, and the customer relationship, along with the recurring revenue that comes with them.

• Full credential stack: mobile keys, permanent, temporary, and algorithmic PINs, NFC and cards, and web credentials. Wallet-grade mobile credentials come through specialist credential partners. (We ran our own build-vs-buy test here too: entering Apple's and Google's ecosystems directly is exactly the kind of expensive, off-mission project we advise against.)

• Commercial-grade account hierarchies for multifamily, retail, SMB, and enterprise.

• Security that survives a buyer's review: secure boot with signed firmware, signed and verified OTA updates with rollback protection, hardware-backed key storage in a Common Criteria EAL 6+ certified secure element, TLS with mutual authentication and per-device certificates, and SOC 2-compliant AWS cloud infrastructure. That posture maps directly onto the EU RED cybersecurity requirements now mandatory for connected devices in Europe.

• Hosting runs on KORELOCK-operated AWS. Most customers use the shared multi-tenant environment; a dedicated AWS IoT instance is available if you need isolation, compliance, or data residency guarantees.

• KORELOCK supports Apple Wallet and Google Wallet and delivers wallet-grade mobile credentials through specialist credential partners, whose stacks are integrated into the platform. This gives partner products access to wallet credential capability without each product line needing its own multi-year ecosystem admission.

• As a US-based company, KORELOCK offers the jurisdiction and support posture many North American commercial buyers require.

• Unlike the platform giants, KORELOCK builds custom features for its customers, including account-level security controls built to your requirements. New product roadmap requests actually ship. 

Limitations:

• Higher engagement than buying a TTLOCK board off the shelf. KORELOCK is a platform partnership, not a commodity module.

• If you only need a low-cost consumer lock with no brand strategy, TTLOCK is cheaper and faster.

• If your lock is primarily a smart-home accessory that needs deep Alexa and Matter integration out of the box, TUYA's ecosystem is hard to beat.

  
  

The strategic question: renting vs. owning

Manufacturers looking for a TTLOCK alternative usually name the same frustrations: the shared app, a roadmap they can't influence, B2B features they can't build. But the TTLOCK-vs-TUYA debate misses the real question. Both platforms answer: "how do I make my lock connected?" Neither answers the question that determines a lock manufacturer's next decade: who owns the customer relationship once the lock is connected, and who controls the roadmap?

On a shared-platform model, your end users are the platform's users, living in the platform's app. Your app-store presence is absent or a thin reskin. Subscription revenue flows to the platform, not to you. And when your channel demands a feature (an account-level security control, a PMS integration, a new credential type), you file a ticket into a roadmap serving thousands of other manufacturers.

Let's be fair about what the giants do well: volume. TTLOCK and TUYA power a large share of the world's OEM smart locks, and for commodity products at commodity prices, that scale is appealing. It's also beside the point. Scale is precisely why no single manufacturer's roadmap matters to them, and commodity volume is not what a brand building a commercial product line is buying.

KORELOCK hosts and operates the cloud, like any platform. The difference is what sits on top: white-label apps that make the end user your customer. The US-based KORELOCK engineering team builds customer-requested features on real timelines, with the option of dedicated infrastructure when a deal requires it. You're not renting a generic platform. You're building your product on a platform that adapts to you.

That distinction matters most in multifamily and commercial channels, where buyers ask about jurisdiction, security certifications, long-term support commitments, and PMS integration. It's why "TTLOCK ceiling" stories are common: businesses launch quickly on a shared platform, then discover they can't build the B2B offering their channel is asking for.

Time to market

How long does it take to launch on each Smart Lock platform? TTLOCK claims it only takes a couple of months, using off-the-shelf boards and the shared app. TUYA advertises that projects take only a couple of weeks. However, in both cases, it likely takes the manufacturer more time to accommodate and change their product to fit their off-the-shelf PCB options. KORELOCK also has an off-the-shelf module that any manufacturer can implement into their lock. Most often, however, KoreLock customers opt to have KoreLock design a custom board that fits their existing product. In this case, KoreLock takes a project from start to production-ready in about six (6) months. 75% of this effort goes to new board design and prototyping, with 25% to custom firmware modifications to meet specific product needs.

The Bottom Line

A factory shipping budget residential locks at volume: TTLock, for the lowest cost and the fastest entry.

A brand where the lock is one node in a smart-home lineup: Tuya, for ecosystem reach and certified Matter support.

A lock manufacturer building a connected product line it intends to own, covering brand, customer relationships, revenue, and roadmap, and especially one serving commercial doors and the niche segments the giants will not touch: KoreLock.

Evaluating a specific platform? See our TTLock alternative and Tuya alternative pages.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is TTLock a lock brand or a platform? TTLock, developed by Sciener, is a software platform and module ecosystem, not a lock brand. Hundreds of factories build TTLock-compatible hardware that runs on the shared TTLock app and cloud.

What is the best TTLock alternative for lock manufacturers? It depends on what is driving the switch. If the issue is smart-home ecosystem reach, Tuya is the common step. If the issues are brand ownership, commercial-grade features, security documentation, hardware customization, or a roadmap that responds to your product, a purpose-built B2B platform like KoreLock is the alternative designed for exactly those gaps.

Does my lock need to support Matter? It depends on where the lock goes. For a residential front door or a short-term rental, yes, and Tuya's certified Matter position is the strongest of the three platforms. For an office or warehouse door, a multifamily or hospitality deployment, or a cabinet, gate, or storage lock, almost never, because the lock has to work with an access control or property management system rather than a smart speaker. Matter also solves a narrower problem than it appears to. It standardizes how a lock talks to a home, not the credential hierarchies, audit trails, or account structures a commercial access product runs on.

Do I have to use the platform's board design? On TTLock, effectively yes if you want the fast timeline, because the model is built around their PCBA catalog and the lock gets designed to fit the board. On Tuya, the documented model is adding a module to hardware you already have, so you keep your own MCU and board, though a new board is still a new board. On KoreLock, ready-made modules are available, but most customers choose a custom board designed around their existing lock, which is why a typical project runs about six months.

Can I white-label the TTLock or Tuya app? Partially. Both offer SDK or OEM app paths, but you are building on their infrastructure and their account architecture. On KoreLock, fully white-label, brand-owned apps are the default model: your end users are your customers, not the platform's.

Who hosts the data on the KoreLock platform? KoreLock operates the cloud infrastructure on AWS as a US-based company, on SOC 2-compliant infrastructure. Most customers run in a shared multi-tenant environment; a dedicated AWS IoT instance is available if you need isolation, compliance, or data residency guarantees.

How is the KoreLock platform secured? Defense in depth across device, connection, and cloud: secure boot with cryptographically signed firmware, signed and verified OTA updates with rollback protection, hardware-backed key storage in a Common Criteria EAL 6+ certified secure element, TLS with mutual authentication and per-device X.509 certificates, encrypted BLE, and OAuth 2.0 API access control with encrypted data at rest. Security review documentation is available to partners under NDA.

Does KoreLock support Apple Wallet, Google Wallet, and Aliro? Wallet-grade mobile credentials are delivered through KoreLock's specialist credential partners, whose stacks are integrated into the platform. This gives partner products access to wallet credential capability without each product line needing its own multi-year ecosystem admission. KoreLock does not support Aliro today. It is on the roadmap.

Can KoreLock build features specific to my product? Yes. Customer-driven feature development is central to the model, including account-level security controls built to your requirements.

How long does it take to launch on each platform? TTLock and Tuya claim that they can be production-ready within two weeks using off-the-shelf boards and the shared app. Note: These timelines don't apply to a greenfield project. They assume an existing electronic lock that meets one of these conditions:

• TTLock: The lock can fit one of Sciener's existing board designs. This usually requires modifying the lock hardware to fit the board.

• Tuya: The lock's existing main board has an open serial (UART) connection for a Tuya radio module. The firmware on that board is then modified to communicate using Tuya's serial protocol and standard lock data points.

A new board design, features beyond the standard set, and end-product certification aren't included in those numbers. Once you add that hardware and firmware work, the timeline looks a lot more like a KoreLock project than the days or weeks advertised. KoreLock takes a project from start to production-ready in about six months, with the time going into what is genuinely new about your product rather than platform infrastructure.

Which platform is best for short-term rental locks? TTLock's rental features and low cost make it a common STR choice. Manufacturers targeting STR and commercial channels with one platform typically outgrow it.

KORELOCK, Inc. is a B2B IoT Smart Lock technology platform for lock manufacturers and access control providers, offering embedded firmware, PCBAs, white-label mobile and web apps, and cloud SaaS. Learn more at korelock.com.