Yale Smart Safe with Wi

The venerable Yale safe takes a big step into the smart home age with this well-made option.

The Yale Smart Safe With Wi-Fi brings smart home technology to the venerable product. Compatible with Apple HomeKit, Amazon Alexa, and Google Home, you can add the safe into your smart home world and lock and unlock from virtually anywhere. For additional security, Yale includes mounting hardware for mounting to a wall or floor. You can use the companion app to see an access log from the safe and to provide credentials to others to open the safe.

When you imagine a smart home, it's probably full of technology like lights, locks, and cameras. But there's likely something many of us have at home that's still stuck in the manual age: a safe.

A safe is a place to store a wide variety of items that are valuable and important, like passports. The problem is, with a regular safe, you don't know who might be trying to open it, with or without permission.

Enter the Yale Smart Safe with Wi-Fi, which brings a big dose of technology to help protect those valuables. Let's take a closer look at the smart safe to see whether it's worth buying.

At first glance, you wouldn't notice much difference about the Yale Smart Safe With Wi-Fi from one of the company's regular non-smart safes. The 30-pound black safe features a keypad on the front along with a protected slot for the key and a small metal handle. Overall, it's a great design. The keypad and handle are sturdy and work well.

It isn't water or fireproof certified, which isn't a surprise, as those features would make the safe much more expensive and heavy. For a home safe, the lack of those features is a fine tradeoff in my book. But there are additional security measures on the hardware itself. Along with a laser-cut safe door, there are two anti-saw bolts to protect the safe from intruders. Both the door and bolts are strong.

While that will deter someone breaking into your safe, another big issue with safes is that someone can simply carry the entire thing away, full of your valuables. To lessen that issue, you can optionally choose to mount the safe to the floor or wall. There are eight mounting holes, four on the floor and four on the door. All the mounting hardware is provided; you just need a drill and screwdriver.

While I didn't mount the safe, the instructions are simple and the entire process should take just a few minutes for anyone who is handy around the home. Also included are four rubber feet, so the safe won't scratch your floor.

Don't expect to hold a huge number of valuables in the safe. The interior is 13.6 inches wide, 9.5 inches wide, and 9.7 inches high. Yale provides a removable shelf to better store items. It can only be placed at one height using the built-in brackets. The shelf and interior bottom can be protected with the included cloth liners that feel soft. To keep track of keys, you can use provided hooks on the door.

In practice, the safe is large enough to hold small valuables and documents like a passport, but it's easily small enough to be tucked away in a closet without standing out.

Another added plus to help you manage and see what is in the safe is a door-activated light that will stay on for 10 seconds after the safe door is opened. So, there's no need to just randomly grab items in hopes that you've picked up the right thing.

For an additional layer of security, a tamper alarm sounds after a set number of incorrect entry attempts. The safe will also completely lock down for five minutes. The alarm chirp won't exactly notify the whole house, but at least it's another way to fend off anyone trying to get access to the safe.

While the safe is well-designed, the smart technology makes it a standout. To get started with the setup, you’ll first need to download the Yale Access app for iOS or Android on your smartphone.

Next, after using the key to open the safe, open the battery cover and insert the included 4 AA batteries. If you’re looking to maximize battery life, it's always wise to use your own batteries instead.

There's also no need to worry about being unable to open the safe if the batteries run out and you can't find the backup key. There's a slot at the bottom of the keypad to insert a 9V battery to charge the keypad enough to enter a code to unlock the safe.

With the Yale Access app downloaded, open it and then select Set up device. You’ll go through a few more steps to prepare the safe for daily use.

You can natively add the smart safe to Apple HomeKit directly from the Yale Access app. While it supports both Amazon Alexa and Google Home, adding that capability will need to be done through those respective smart home apps. During my testing, I just used the safe with HomeKit.

Unfortunately, you’ll need to go through a few more steps to add Wi-Fi capability to the safe. Yale includes a Wi-Fi module that requires a separate installation process. The module is a small square that can be plugged directly into an electrical outlet. Without it, you can still use the smart technology in the safe if you are in Bluetooth range. For me, only using the safe with Bluetooth (and not Wi-Fi) loses a large amount of its appeal, especially if you're placing the safe in an out-of-the-way location.

The one exception is with HomeKit. If you have set up an Apple home hub, which can be a HomePod or Apple TV, you don't need to use the module.

Yale also recommends that you plug in the module within 10 feet of the safe and have a line of sight to the front of the safe. That's not exactly practical if you are placing the safe under a bed or in a closet. I had a number of issues installing the module. It requires scanning the serial number through the app, but I attempted four times to go through the scanning process before it would recognize it in the app.

That's disappointing for something that should be simple and is a big part of the experience. However, if you’re just fine with Bluetooth-only capability with Apple HomeKit, you can buy that model without the module for $50 less.

While you probably won't be using a safe on a daily basis, the smart features make the overall experience a lot better. By far the easiest way to open the safe is with a quick Siri command.

In the Home app, functionality is somewhat limited, as you can only lock or unlock the safe. You can also use the safe as part of a HomeKit automation with another smart home product. But with the companion app, you can also open the safe from your iPhone. As an extra-added layer of protection, you can require an additional Face ID or Touch ID scan before unlocking the app.

The app can also allow you to set up access for another user to access the safe with their own access code. Just like with many smart locks, you can tailor exactly when they can access the safe. You can choose to give them permanent or temporary access. It's also possible to set a reoccurring schedule. Doing that works well and is easy to understand.

Another nice feature of the app is Smart Notifications. There are four events to choose from, including when the door is locked or unlocked manually and if a specific user operates it. You can also further customize the notifications for a certain time frame. These work really well and are a great addition, especially if you use the safe often.

We all have important documents and more that need more protection than just a sock drawer. The Yale Smart Safe with Wi-Fi provides a great way to protect your valuables with familiar smart home technology.

Even though you could purchase a similar option without the smart technology for less, being able to truly know who is accessing the safe is well worth the additional cost. And being able to open the safe with just a voice command or a simple tap on your iPhone is a great plus.

Born and raised in sunny west Texas, Brent graduated from Texas Tech University with a BA in journalism. He's been writing about technology for more than 5 years and enjoys all things Apple, accessories, and security.