Chamberlain MyQ Secure View Review: AI Smart Lock & Privacy

Chamberlain MyQ Secure View: The AI Bouncer at Your Front Door

Imagine this: Your neighbor, a kind soul who occasionally drops off your mail when it ends up in their box, walks up to your porch. They reach for the handle to leave a package. Suddenly, with a heavy mechanical groan, your garage door slams shut and the front deadbolt clicks into place. Your neighbor stands there, confused and a little insulted, while your phone pings with a notification: Unwelcome face detected. Security protocols engaged.

At CES 2026, Chamberlain unveiled a device that makes this scenario a reality. The myQ Secure View 3-in-1 Smart Lock is an ambitious, $279.99 piece of hardware that combines a 2K HDR video doorbell, a smart deadbolt, and an integrated AI security system. Its headline feature is the ability to autonomously lock your doors and close your garage if it spots a face it doesn't recognize. While it sounds like the ultimate peace of mind, it raises a massive question: Is our home security becoming too smart for its own good?

The All-Seeing Eye and the Walled Garden

The hardware itself is impressive. A 2K HDR camera offers crisp visuals, and the integration with Chamberlain’s garage door openers provides a unified look at your home’s main entry points. The pitch is simple: You scan your family’s faces into the myQ app, and the lock uses facial recognition to grant hands-free entry. It’s the dream for anyone who has ever struggled with grocery bags while trying to find their keys.

However, the myQ Secure View operates within a notoriously closed ecosystem. In recent years, Chamberlain has moved away from supporting broad standards like Apple HomeKit and has been hesitant to embrace Matter, the industry standard designed to make smart devices work together. This means if you are a dedicated Google Home or Amazon Alexa user, your integration options might be limited compared to other brands. You are essentially buying into the Chamberlain world, and once you’re in, it’s hard to get out. For a gift-giver, this is a critical detail. If the recipient uses a specific smart home hub, this lock might end up being a very expensive, very pretty paperweight that won't talk to their other lights or sirens.

The True Cost of Convenience: Subscriptions and Privacy

While the $279.99 price tag covers the hardware, it doesn’t tell the whole story. Like many video doorbells on the market today, the Secure View relies heavily on the cloud. To actually store video clips of those unwelcome faces or to review who came to your door while you were at work, you will almost certainly need a monthly myQ subscription. Without it, you often lose the very features that make the lock worth the premium price. Over a few years, a $280 lock can easily become a $500 investment.

Then there is the privacy elephant in the room. By using this lock, you are feeding facial data into a private database. While Chamberlain emphasizes security, the idea of a camera constantly analyzing the biometric data of every delivery person, friend, and stranger who walks by is a significant jump from a standard motion-sensing camera. Does the convenience of a hands-free door outweigh the discomfort of a device that is essentially judging every person who approaches your home?

Who is This Lock For?

The myQ Secure View isn't a one-size-fits-all solution. It targets specific niches in the smart home market.

The Tech-Forward Early Adopter: If you are the person who had the first iPhone and a VR headset before they were cool, this is for you. You likely enjoy the process of troubleshooting new tech and don't mind the occasional facial recognition hiccup in exchange for being on the cutting edge.

The Dedicated myQ User: If your home is already outfitted with Chamberlain garage door openers and you love the existing app experience, this is the logical next step. It simplifies your digital life by keeping everything under one roof—even if that roof is a walled garden.

The Security-Obsessed: For those who live in high-traffic areas or have genuine concerns about unauthorized entry, the proactive nature of a lock that closes the garage automatically is a major selling point. Just be prepared for the learning curve as the AI learns the difference between a threat and the person delivering your pizza.

Gift-Giver’s Verdict

If you are thinking about buying this as a gift, proceed with extreme caution. This is not a great gift for the non-tech-savvy parent or the friend who values their digital privacy above all else. Because it requires facial scanning and a specific app ecosystem, it is a high-maintenance gift.

Buy it if: The recipient is already a myQ power user and has been asking for a way to integrate their front door and garage. Skip it if: The recipient uses Apple HomeKit, prefers local storage over subscriptions, or gets creeped out by the idea of facial recognition.

Intriguing, But Proceed With Caution

Chamberlain is pushing the boundaries of what a front door can do. Merging a doorbell, a lock, and a garage controller into one AI-driven unit is a feat of engineering. The potential for a seamless, keyless life is right there on the horizon.

But as we have seen with many first-generation AI products, the real-world execution is where things get messy. Facial recognition isn't perfect; shadows, hats, and even aging can confuse sensors. A lock that makes executive decisions about your home's security needs to be right 100 percent of the time. Until we see how this handles a rainy night or a group of teenagers in hoodies, it remains a fascinating, albeit slightly polarizing, experiment in home automation.

For now, the myQ Secure View is a glimpse into a future where our homes know us. Whether that’s a comforting thought or a chilling one depends entirely on how much you trust the algorithm holding the keys to your front door.