Google Wallet home key: 3 locks work, and one setting to change

The Google Wallet home key is a digital copy of your house key that lives in Wallet next to your bank cards, car keys and passes. It works with smart locks you have already set up in the Google Home app.

You can use it two ways:

• Tap to Unlock (NFC): hold the back of your phone against the lock, the same way you tap a card reader at a store. NFC, or near field communication, is the short-range radio your phone already uses for contactless payments.
• Unlock on Approach (UWB): walk toward the door and the lock opens without you touching anything. This uses Ultra Wideband, a radio that can measure how close your phone is with real precision. It is switched off by default and you turn it on in Wallet.

Google built the feature on Aliro, a new open standard for digital door access from the Connectivity Standards Alliance, the same industry group behind the Matter smart home standard. Google says it helped develop Aliro.

The short answer: very few locks for now. Google lists three Aliro locks at launch, and says more models are on the way.

• Schlage Sense Pro: tap to unlock now, with hands-free unlocking promised later.
• Nuki Keypad 2 NFC: tap to unlock.
• Aqara U400: both tap and hands-free, which makes it the only lock that can do Unlock on Approach today.

The lock is only part of the shopping list. You also need a Matter-enabled Google hub that works as a Thread border router, which is the small piece of networking kit that lets low-power smart home gadgets talk to each other. Google hubs that fit the bill include the Google TV Streamer, Nest Wifi Pro, Nest Hub Max and the second-generation Nest Hub.

For phones, the rules split by unlock method:

• Tap to unlock: any Android phone with NFC running Android 9 or later, with the newest versions of the Google Home and Google Wallet apps.
• Hands-free unlock: a phone with Ultra Wideband that supports Aliro. On Google’s list are Pixel 10 Pro models and later ones, Fold and XL versions included. Reports say some UWB-equipped Samsung Galaxy phones also work, though Google’s own post doesn’t name Samsung.
• Watches: Wear OS smartwatches are not supported at launch.

You don’t add the key from Wallet itself. Setup starts in the Google Home app.

1. If you are setting up a new Aliro lock in Google Home, the app will prompt you to save the key to Wallet at the end of setup. Accept it and you’re done.
2. If your lock is already set up, open the Google Home app and go to Home settings, then Google Wallet key. You can also get there from the lock’s own device settings.
3. Once saved, the key shows up in Wallet as a simple card with the Google Home logo and your home’s name in the top-right corner.

The key belongs to your home, not to one lock. If you have, say, a front door and a back door both fitted with Aliro locks, one key in Wallet opens both. A second home needs its own key.

It also follows you between phones. The key syncs to compatible Android phones signed into the same Google Wallet account, so you don’t have to set it up twice.

This is the part most people will skip, and shouldn’t. Out of the box, a tap can open your door without you waking or unlocking your phone, as long as the phone was unlocked at some point in the last few hours.

That is convenient when your hands are full of shopping bags. It also means anyone who picks up your lost or stolen phone during that window could walk into your home with it.

The fix takes a few seconds:

1. Open Google Wallet and tap your home key.
2. Turn on Require device unlock.

After that, every tap at the door asks for your screen lock or fingerprint first. If you want hands-free entry, open the home key in Wallet, tap the menu in the top-right corner and switch on Unlock on approach.

Sharing the key with your household and guests

Families are covered. Other members of your Google Home household can add the same home key to their own Google Wallet on their own Android phones.

Guests are a different story. Visitors don’t get Wallet keys at all; instead they get guest passcodes through the Google Home app, the same way they did before.

The key also switches itself off in two cases: if the lock is removed from your home in Google Home, or if you leave that home. To delete it by hand, open the key in Wallet, tap the top-right menu and choose Remove.

iPhone owners have been opening doors from Apple Wallet since 2021, and Samsung brought home keys to Galaxy phones earlier this year. So on timing alone, Google is behind.

The more interesting part is the standard underneath. Apple’s home keys arrived before Aliro existed and needed lock makers to build specifically for Apple. Because Google’s version runs on Aliro, an industry-wide standard, the long-term promise is a single lock that works just as well for an iPhone household as an Android one, instead of your front door forcing everyone in the house onto the same phone brand.

Right now the Google Wallet home key is rolling out to people enrolled in the Google Home Public Preview program. Google says everyone else gets it over the coming weeks, but it hasn’t given a firm date, and its announcement doesn’t say which countries are included. If you’re in the US, UK or Canada, don’t buy a lock on the assumption it will work in your region until Google confirms it.

If you already own one of the three supported locks and a compatible Google hub, it costs you nothing to try once it reaches your account. If you would be buying a lock and a hub from scratch, it is worth waiting for a longer list of Aliro locks, especially ones that support hands-free unlocking from day one.