Morning Industry RF-01P Radio Frequency Remote Deadbolt, Polished Brass

This is a nifty idea if you’re tired of messing with keys or a touch pad with a load of groceries in your arms. The idea is, you can open your door from a short distance with the press of a button. I installed it on door in the garage that opens to the house. Now we can zap the lock from our car. Installation is about as easy as it could be, given the need to line up the latch carefully.

Just a few problems that could be fixed by a little engineering and better management:

1. The mechanism is noisy; not that it matters much, since you don’t use it often. But it definitely gets your attention.

2. The biggest problem is that the key fobs are unnecessarily bulky and a little unreliable. You get two with the unit, and one that I received didn’t work. Calling for help was useless (see below). I eventually took it apart and found that a contact was out of alignment. I bent it so that it would work, but discovered that ordinary pressure on the housing when you push a button is enough to misalign it. So I can keep it working only if I use light pressure carefully. You can buy extra fobs for $15 a pop, but why should you have to? I thought of sending it back for replacement, but then I’d have to spend more money on postage and handling, with no assurance that the replacement would work any better, considering the design. As to the general operation, the manufacturer says that it’s radio frequency, not infrared, so you don’t have to point it at the doorlock. That seems to be true, but I’ve found that the operation is a little sporadic. Sometimes it fails to respond for no apparent reason. Also, you can’t just give the buttons a quick touch. You have to hold them down for a second or two.

3. Customer service was good news/bad news. The good is that I got through to someone immediately. I told the guy that the remote didn’t work, and that I suspected a weak battery. But his reply was basically, “Yeah, so what, we don’t guarantee batteries. You can probably get them at Radio Shack.” Since the unit uses two watch batteries, I figured replacing them would be relatively expensive, and I told him that the unit had failed to work right out of the box. No response. After that I opened the unit and eventually discovered the problem with the contact.

The problems with the fobs (remotes) are a major drawback because there’s no point in having the unit if they don’t work well. And the bulkiness is simply bad engineering (key fobs for cars are more complex, yet smaller and more reliable). So if there were other options available, I would recommend them. But it appears that this is the only unit of its kind on the market, and it does work as advertised as long as you’re careful with the fob.
Rating: 3 / 5

This is a good deadbolt, and the remote has surprising range. However, the write-up is incorrect in their advertisement of an auto-lock function. This deadbolt does NOT have any such function. We have been informed by the manufacturer that that has never been available on their deadbolts.
Rating: 3 / 5

I Have been using this RF deadbolt for about 2 months now and it works great. It was a snap to install and works as advertised. Remote range is pretty good, about 25ft or so. The construction is sturdy, and brass has a nice finish. The instructions were pretty decent and only tricky part is lining up the dead bolt hole to the dead bolt. If you don’t get that accurately it may not lock, and give you the annoying error beep. It took me a few tries to get it right. Make sure you check the little switch in the back and its in the position for left or right hand door otherwise the remote buttons will work in opposite. I called Morning industries to verify this and their customer service was AWESOME. Very helpful and knowledgeable. I ended up ordering two more remotes from them too. Best part of the system is you can add and remove remotes as you wish. If you loose one just erase it from the system and add a new one.
Rating: 5 / 5