Bicentric Kwikset SmartKey - Partial Teardown

[Robotnik]

I'm a fan of unusual master keyed locks - master rings, bicentric cylinders, even interchangeable cores. While perusing eBay one morning, I ran across one of these I'd previously not known existed - a Kwikset SmartKey bicentric cylinder, meant primarily for multifamily residential applications.



Essentially, the master cylinder is hidden above the resident's cylinder, and is accessed by spinning the lock's faceplate. The master cylinder keyway is different (not a standard KW1), so duplicating would be difficult.





Using a geared mechanism between the two cylinders' tailpieces, the change cylinder operates normally, while the master operates in the opposite direction from a standard deadbolt (when mounted on a LH door, it's CW to unlock and CCW to lock).





Bought it ASAP for cheap, but after it showed up, found that the lower (change) cylinder didn't work. Tore it down and fixed it up; as the gut shots of the cylinder aren't any different from a normal SmartKey, I'll leave them out. After repair, both the master...



…and change…



…work like a charm.

[Big Jesse]

Excellent review!!! thank you so much for this. im super jealous. feel free to sell it to me when your bored with it!!

[Pintickler]

Totally cool, Robotnick. Do you have a picture of that nonKW1 blank ?

[cheerIO]

Man I hate SmartKeys.

But that is pretty dang cool.

I wouldn't mind having that in my collection, just not on my door.

[Pintickler]

I wonder if the "master" cylinder is interchangeable with a non master Smartkey cylinder. Does anybody know ?

[Pintickler]

Man I hate SmartKeys.

But that is pretty dang cool.

I wouldn't mind having that in my collection, just not on my door.

I hate Smartkeys too...and I see them everywhere ! But I've never seen that bicentric one. I wouldn't mind having one to dissect.

[Robotnik]

Totally cool, Robotnick. Do you have a picture of that nonKW1 blank ?

A couple photos of the keys. Master (leftmost key in the top photo; rightmost in the lower one) looks like a normal Kwikset blank with different warding and a slightly more 'filled in' bow.

[Robotnik]

Man I hate SmartKeys.

But that is pretty dang cool.

I wouldn't mind having that in my collection, just not on my door.

My thoughts exactly.

[Robotnik]

I wonder if the "master" cylinder is interchangeable with a non master Smartkey cylinder. Does anybody know ?

As far as I can tell, with the proper tailpiece and spacer ring, the master cylinder could be swapped out for a normal one.

[GWiens2001]

Nope. The SmartKey plugs do not have the proper pin channels for a normal plug.

And you may have seen them before and not known it, since you have to spin the faceplate to show the 'master' plug.

Gordon

[Robotnik]

Nope. The SmartKey plugs do not have the proper pin channels for a normal plug.

And you may have seen them before and not known it, since you have to spin the faceplate to show the 'master' plug.

Gordon

I took Pintickler's question to be whether the master cylinder is swappable for a normal SmartKey cylinder; appears that it can be interchanged in that case. I may have read his question incorrectly; definitely can't be swapped for a normal Kwikset pin tumbler cylinder.

You're definitely correct about these hiding in plain sight. My brother's apartment complex is keyed with these; it had always bothered me how a huge residential complex could function with SmartKey deadbolts (which aren't themselves master key-able), until I found out these exist. A quick spin of his front door deadbolt's faceplate, and I had my answer !

[Pintickler]

You got it right, Robotnick. I was talking about another Smartkey cylinder. I wonder what that blank for the master cylinder is called ... KW2 ?

[jeffmoss26]

Very cool, thanks for sharing!

[MBI]

For those of you who were wanting one of these, I got one of these countertop demo units for free back when this lock was first introduced just by asking my Kwikset factory rep for one. If you are a locksmith and know who your rep is, might be worth trying this route.

[Pintickler]

I was just wondering what would happen if the master key ever got lost. Assuming all master cylinders are gonna get "re keyed", it sure would be nice to have a working key. At the risk of asking a dumb question, can a Smartkey cylinder be decoded ?