Locksmith and its traditional role
When you are locked out of your house, you would usually look for a locksmith because it is never easy for an untrained person to open the lock. Even a newly trained locksmith may take more time to open a lock than an experienced locksmith. Both experience and skill are important when it comes to opening of locks.
In the past, locksmiths not only open the locks, they also repair locks and duplicate keys. However, key duplication is frequently performed by neighborhood shops nowadays and lock repair is often not economically feasible because it is inexpensive to replace a lock. As such, locksmith’s task has been reduced to lock opening in recent years.
Lately, more people are getting rid of their mechanical locks and replacing them with digital locks. Why are more people replacing their locks with digital locks? What is the replacement rate of such locks? Would this have an effect on locksmiths in the next few years? Would they be able to continue their trade?
From Conventional Lock to Digital Lock – Locksmith to Adapt or Retire
With the introduction of a digital lock and its popularity, locksmith has to learn a new set of skill (i.e. the opening of digital lock for house and office as well as for safe deposit box).
Looking at the high adoption rate for a digital lock, a locksmith service is likely to shift towards the opening of such locks in the next few years. The article “Rising Adoption of Biometric Systems in Enterprise” dated 23 May 2017 provided by Transparency Market Research, there is a strong adoption of a digital door lock system across the end-user industries including residential, industrial, government and commercial sectors with Asia-Pacific market are expected to lead in terms of growth rate. The research estimated that the global digital door lock market had a valuation of US$1,161.7 million in 2016 and would continue to grow at a tremendous rate.
In Asia and over the world, we see more and more households installing digital locks due to its convenience and ease of use. Locksmiths who refuse to evolve with the digital age and pick up the new skill of opening such electronic locks may be forced to retire in the next 10 to 20 years. It is a choice that has to be made, i.e. adapt or perish in this changing world where digital adoption is accelerating at such tremendous pace.