Home jewelry safes are an excellent place to securely and conveniently store your jewelry. First, select a good quality safe that’s the right size to meet your needs now and in the future. Then you will likely have the opportunity to select the type of lock you want. There are several things to consider as you select the lock for your home jewelry safe.
The three most common jewelry safe locks are the traditional tumbler style combination lock, the electronic/digital lock and the biometric or fingerprint lock. The most important consideration is that the lock be listed by United Laboratories as a high security lock. Anything less will not provide the level of security warranted for a home jewelry safe.
The high security combination lock looks very familiar. It is the one you see most often in the movies where the thief turns the dial slowly listening carefully, sometimes with a stethoscope, trying to hear the correct combination. These locks have the solid, traditional look that many people like. They are however, cumbersome to open. They are not like the old high school lockers that many of us remember, where you can dial in your combination with minimum precision, give it one good kick, and it opens every time. With a high security tumbler you need to be very precise, dialing the lock four times one direction, three times to the other direction and then two more times to the third number. As we get older most of us will need to pull out our glasses to be able to accomplish this. If you are off by just one tick mark you start all over again. The traditional combination lock provides reliable, secure protection but not the most efficient access to your home jewelry safe.
The high security electronic or digital lock is currently the most popular lock on home jewelry safes. These locks provide convenient, quick access. When your home jewelry safe arrives you will receive easy to use instructions guiding you to set the combination of your choice. Rather than a factory combination as with the traditional combination lock that requires a locksmith to change, you are able to select an easy to remember number that you can change yourself at will. These locks are designed to prohibit a burglar from sequentially trying different combinations, hoping to get lucky. After 3-4 incorrect attempts it locks out for a period of 10-20 minutes. Following the lockout, if an incorrect combination is entered even once more, the lockout period begins again. Batteries are typically of the common 9-volt variety and easily replaced from the outside of your home jewelry safe, in the faceplate of the lock. The electronic locks provide convenient, quick access to your home jewelry safe at an affordable price.
The high security biometric lock is commonly known as the fingerprint lock. The biometric locks offer all of the same conveniences as the electronic lock with the distinct advantage of not having a combination to remember. While they are becoming much more reliable, as with any newer technology they are still a bit pricey. Generally these locks allow several different fingerprints to be stored so numerous users can have access to the home jewelry safe. The primary user or administrator is able to add and delete fingerprint users at anytime. While the biometric locks are gaining ground they are still out sold by the electronic locks due to worries of reliability and price.
The locking mechanism is one of the key security components of your home jewelry safe. While locks can be changed at a later date it is more cost effective to make the right selection up front. Call or visit the experts at Maximum Security Safes and we would be happy to discuss this decision with you!
