The S3 Max is a complete lock assembly. It comes with matte black interior and exterior escutcheons, a deadbolt assembly, a strike plate, a pair of keys, a quick start guide, and assorted mounting hardware. It will fit doors with a 1-3/8 or 2-1/6 thickness, a 1-1/2 or 2-1/8 crossbore diameter, and a 1-inch door hole diameter.
The exterior escutcheon has an IP65 rating and measures 7 by 2.7 by 1.1 inches (HWD). At the top, there’s a palm vein scanner with an LED border that glows white during a scan. Just below the scanner is a 2K HDR camera with a 180-degree field of view, a microphone, a light sensor, four infrared LEDs for black-and-white night vision, and a pair of motion sensors.
(Credit: John R. Delaney)
At the center of the escutcheon is a touch screen keypad with numbers 0 to 9 and an auto-lock button. The keypad stays dark until a button is pressed, at which point each button is backlit with white LED lighting. At the bottom of the escutcheon is a doorbell button that flashes blue when motion is detected. The button slides away to reveal a keyway and a USB-C port, which can be used to hook up to a power source if the batteries are dead. A speaker sits on the left side of the escutcheon.
The interior escutcheon measures 7.9 by 3 by 1.2 inches and has a removable panel that hides the rechargeable 15,000mAh lithium-ion battery pack and the compartment that holds four AA backup batteries. The battery pack is rated to last up to five months between charges, and the AA batteries will power the lock for another month. The removable panel has a 4-inch 1080p color screen that displays a live stream from the camera, which is ideal for doors without peepholes. Sharing space on the panel are buttons to activate the screen and lock/unlock the door.
The lock has Bluetooth and Wi-Fi (2.4GHz) radios and supports Matter, which allows you to use it with Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit, Google Home, and Samsung SmartThings. However, it doesn’t work with IFTTT applets that provide third-party smart home device integrations. It has 15.5GB of internal eMMC flash memory for storing event-triggered video, and if that isn’t enough, you can connect it to a Eufy HomeBase 3, which can support up to 16TB of storage.
Features include two-way talk, auto-lock, human detection, loitering detection (alerts you when someone has been hanging around for a set period of time), leaving detection (alerts you when someone has left your property), one-touch locking, and wrong try protection (disables the lock after multiple incorrect palm scan or passcode attempts).
The S3 Max uses the same Eufy mobile app (available for Android and iOS) as the company’s other smart devices, including the E340 Floodlight Camera ($219.99) and the Video Doorbell E340 ($179.99). The lock appears on the app’s home screen in its own panel with a still image of the last captured motion event. Tapping the panel launches a screen with a live stream, and below that is a round blue lock/unlock button that requires a press and hold to activate, so you won’t accidentally lock or unlock with an accidental tap.
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(Credit: Eufy/PCMag)
At the bottom of the screen are buttons for recording video, taking a snapshot, initiating two-way talk, playing a pre-recorded quick response voice message, and muting the sound. Tapping the gear icon in the top right corner takes you to the settings screen. Here you can use Matter to connect the lock to your Alexa, Google, HomeKit, or SmartThings home automation platform, but you’ll need a Matter-enabled controller such as an Apple HomePod or an Amazon Echo Show to do so.
The settings screen has panels for accessing motion detection settings, configuring notifications, creating quick responses, and managing power usage to conserve battery life. Here you’ll also find a panel for managing access where you can add lock users, assign one-time, always, or scheduled access times, and register palm vein scans. Additional settings let you configure video quality, speaker and ringtone volume, Wi-Fi, and the indoor chime. There’s also a scramble passcode setting, which allows you to enter random numbers before and after your actual passcode to help keep it secret from prying eyes.
To review lock activity, tap the events button at the bottom of the home screen. Here you’ll find a list of lock and unlock events and thumbnails of recorded events that you can play, download, share, or delete. To create groups that allow you to control all of your Eufy devices at once, tap the smart button, also located at the bottom of the home screen.
