Assa Abloy has laid off most of Level Home’s staff and plans to fold the smart lock maker into its Kwikset brand, while insisting Level will keep developing, selling, and supporting its locks. For now, Apple Home and Matter features should keep working locally
For now, the lock still clicks—and that’s the part that matters most. But for Level Home owners, the comfort of daily use is now shadowed by a boardroom shake-up: Assa Abloy has laid off most of Level’s staff and is folding the smart lock maker into its Kwikset brand.
The change was reported on June 26, when it was said Assa Abloy laid off most of Level Home’s employees and would integrate the company into its Kwikset brand. Assa Abloy disputed reports that Level was shutting down.
The company’s message to customers is clear. Assa Abloy said it will continue developing, selling, and supporting its smart locks while keeping customer support in place. It also stressed that existing owners shouldn’t expect immediate problems.
In the short term, that reassurance is rooted in how Level’s core features work. Basic locking and unlocking through Apple Home and Matter should continue, because those functions run locally rather than relying on Level’s cloud services.
But not everything is local. Features such as the mobile app, auto-unlock, and door status updates still depend on Level’s online services. Assa Abloy has not announced any plans to shut those services down. If it ever did, the cloud-based functions could stop working—while local Apple Home and Matter functions would keep operating.
Even the people who helped build Level are now part of the churn. The restructuring reportedly includes the departure of Level co-founders John Martin and Ken Goto along with most of the engineering team. A small group of employees is expected to remain to finish a smart lock designed for multi-family housing.
The alarm, however, comes from a blunt warning shared with the publication by an anonymous source describing the restructuring. “I think consumers should know that Assa Abloy is not equipped to preserve the customer base,” the source told the outlet.
Assa Abloy bought Level Home in 2024 and already owns Kwikset and Yale. Folding Level into Kwikset would bring three smart lock brands under one parent company. Assa Abloy said Level will continue operating as a business within Assa Abloy and that it remains committed to investing in the smart lock category. The company also said it doesn’t expect existing customers to see changes to product support.
Level earned its reputation in part through design. It hid its battery, motor, and electronics inside a standard deadbolt rather than adding a bulky interior box. That approach, combined with support for Apple’s Home Key feature, helped make it stand out in the Apple Home ecosystem.
What users can do right now is simple: keep using the locks they already have. because Assa Abloy says customer support will remain and basic local functions should keep working. What users can’t yet verify is the rest of the promise—whether Level will continue pushing new products and features. or whether the cloud services behind app-based features like auto-unlock and door status updates will remain stable after much of the engineering team that built the platform is gone.
The gap between “safe for now” and “secure long term” is where the anxiety lives.
Level Home Assa Abloy Kwikset smart locks Apple Home Matter Home Key cloud services auto-unlock door status updates cybersecurity IoT startups