People are always asking me for options to get access control on their door. In North America, most manufacturers concentrate on what is profitable, which in the consumer market is tubular locks. That is because residential doors are prepped for tubular locks the majority of the time. Everything else is an outside case with niche products. Until recently, I have told everybody asking me about patio door access control that there is no product available without a lot of customization. That has all changed. Dalton has made something for patio doors. Today we install the D14.
Whenever somebody does the research and buys some new electronic lock off of Alibaba I tell them to limit their expectations, but I am happy to install it. It is always interesting to see what new innovations they come up with across the sea. This lock fills an interesting niche so I agreed to install it, knowing full well I’d probably be in for headaches and a callback, and I would most likely come out losing money but gaining experience.
After arriving on site, I took stock of the situation. Did the customer order the right lock? Sort of, it had the wrong backset. Not sure if the manufacturer offered this lock in other backsets. The customer really needed keyless entry for reasons so was not too worried about the backset issue, which was mostly covered by the included gasket anyway. The customer did not open the box and leave bags of parts strewn around the room which is always a plus.
Installation was fairly straightforward, drill lots of holes for screws and cables. Try to position lock to cover up the old lock’s holes while aiming for the same approximate strike plate location. Pro tip: fold template in half to line it up with existing holes better.
One gripe I have is that the instructions said that for a right hand door you had to rotate a swiveling hub for the handle down. This is to tell the lock what side of the door it is on so it knows whether to lock the door when turning the lever, or to retract the deadbolt instead. It is opposite for left and right hand doors. After following the instructions and laboriously routing the cables and installing this I discovered that the instructions were actually incorrect on this point.
Also the reset button was not where the directions explained it to be. However, despite the instructions showing some pictures of a different lock it wasn’t all that hard to figure out after flipping the little hub to the correct undocumented position.
Now I can’t gripe very much because I’ve never designed anything electronic, or designed a lock. Also, it should be mentioned that the lock did work just fine once installed correctly, and the customer was highly satisfied. This may also save somebody from breaking their neck while attempting a window entry from a tree a little too far from the window in the future.
I don’t know if the lock works well with Wifi or the fingerprint scanner, but it did work well with the keypad and the key override. I should mention that this works with some kind of goofy proprietary key, like an old multilock without an interactive element. I don’t think the key override would work well with aftermarket cylinders because of the shape of the lock cylinder. If this took a 45-45 profile cylinder it would be much nicer. (This is constructive criticism for your next product, Dalton!)
I am not sure how long this company has been making such products but I assume not long, I would have heard of it since customers make me look for such products, so this seems like a pretty good product for a young company considering the abysmal electronic products that other established companies have put out in the past. Kwikset electronic deadbolts are still often trash right out of the box, no better than Defiant and Amazon Specials under $50. That this unknown made a working lock for not too much money is a pleasant surprise. It might be daunting to install for a beginner but if you know how to drill holes in sheet metal with a hole saw and use a measuring tape it won’t be so bad.
Aesthetically the lock looks pretty good, I wish that they made the cassette the same color as the keypad though. Not sure why they chose different colors there. It would be nice if the lock didn’t require so many holes. I hope this lock keeps working well because if the customer wants something else, there isn’t a lot of options that will cover all of those new holes. The cable routing could have used a little bit more forethought from the manufacturer. You have to kind of stuff the cables into the hollow door wherever they will go and the material of these doors being thin sharp sheet metal frankly had me very concerned. Dalton would do well to armor their electrical cables with something more sturdy.
I will report back on the longevity of the lock, the customer knows I am interested in updates and I will post them here.
D14