Safety 1st Magnetic Locking System (1 Key and 8 Locks)

GOOD LOCKS FOR A FEW YEARS BUT NOW MANUFACTURER DEFECT IN SOME LOCK SETS.Let me begin by saying that I have purchased from Amazon and installed hundreds of these locks over the past several years.I have a cabinet shop and use them on my products.For the most part I have been happy with the locks,occasionally I would have a lock that would stick or not work properly.I usually order and install at least 30 individual locks each week.About a month ago I had a set of locks that the magnet would not open the lock through a cabinet door. The latch on the lock usually presses in with little effort but on these locks the latch was stiffer than normal.I thought maybe it was just a bad set and returned them to Amazon . Since then I have purchase about another 25 sets of locks.Out of that 20 I had to return 11 of them with the same issue.The problem is with the whole lock set and not individual locks in the pack.On one of my orders for 6 packs only two packs works properly. To see what the problem is I took a good working lock and a defective lock apart.Inside the working lock there is a thin small spring that is wound 4 times.The defective lock the spring is a little thicker and it wound 5 times.With the thicker stronger spring the magnet is not strong enough to open the through cabinet door .Im not sure if the manufacturer has meant to install a stronger spring for some reason but if they did the key will not work through a 3/4 thick cabinet door like they have for years.The problem is not specific to Amazon purchases.I went to a local retailer to purchase two pack of 8 locks while waiting for my Amazon replacements.One of those packs work fine and the other one has the stiff spring and would not work As I am writing this review I just received my 6 replacement packs from Amazon,Four of the packs are good and two of them have the stiffer spring.Hopefully the manufacturer is not in the process of changing to the stiffer springs in all their locks.If so the key will not work through most cabinet doors

We got these tabs because the traditional tabs were not a great option for me. I am 6ft 3in so my larger fingers would need a good amount of room to unlatch a traditional tab, and because of the amount of free play required, I could then snap them too easily if I forgot and just opened the cabinet. Pros: The magnet locks install fairly easy and the provided screws are actually decent for the job. On hinged doors it is easy to setup for it to have no free play and keep the doors closed. Cons: When mounting magnet upside down (latch portion facing upwards like in picture), if the screw are not at the very top of slot in the magnet, then the latch mechanism will not spring back into place. For a pull out type drawer, this required me to use washers as a spacer for the top piece instead of just being able to side the lock portion upwards.

This is an acceptable product for basic uses, and it has a couple strong points worth mentioning. The magnet strength is excellent. Both the key and the latch have magnets, this is smart. I found a potential and safe working depth/distance of up to 1 thick piece of lumber (1x4 ideal), with optional 3/8 drywall over the top of that as well. Most cabinet doors are a 3/4 maximum, usually about half inch, so these are strong enough indeed. Floating in air with no obstruction, i was able to operate the magnet latching from almost 2 apart. Also, the key is easy to find, just keep it where you expect it. Having its own magnet allows a variety of storage options. The product loses a star for a couple reasons. First, mounting versatility - i didnt use them in a open air cabinet door with no obstructions like most people will. Also, the small screw hole tabs - these proved to be a mounting challenge, and the base that attaches to the door is bowed (convex) on many of them. No screws came with, youre on own with that one as well. I still would recommend this product.

We have used these locks for the past 10 months and I absolutely love them. We installed them in both the kitchen and bathrooms and they work perfectly. There is a bit of a learning curve to install them – I want to say the first one took over 30 minutes to learn how to line up, but then each subsequent lock took just a couple minutes (as others have noted, there are videos online you can refer to if needed). It also takes a minute to teach visitors how to use them. Now that we have an extremely active toddler they definitely do the trick, holding up even when he pulls on the handles and throws his entire weight back to try and open a cabinet (yes, toddlers do that). Overall, this is a great option if you want to avoid the more cumbersome plastic white cabinet locks all over your kitchen or bathroom. We did buy an extra key (just to make access as convenient as possible while cooking).

We have had these locks installed in our kitchen for over a year now. At first we only installed them on the cabinets but then my toddler started opening up drawers with forks and knives so I decided they needed to go everywhere. Overall, it was fairly easy to install in the cabinets, especially if you have a power drill. The drawers were a bit trickier as I had to remove them completely to install. Not impossible, just took a bit more time. Also, in our case, the drawers are not that tall so a right angle screwdriver attachment helped tremendously since I couldnt get the regular screwdriver to fit. The locks work great and its very easy to unlock with the key. The hardest part is remembering where the lock is on the drawers. The kicks do take up a little bit of space in the drawers, so if the drawer is small to begin with, be selective on where you place it. I love the lock/unlocked option. When Im cooking and my daughter is not around, I leave the cabinet or drawer unlocked so I dont have to get the key every few minutes if I need another spoon or pot. And then simply move back to locked position when Im finished. Its not necessary but certainly a nice to have feature. My daughter is 2 now and she still tries to open the drawers occasionally. She pulls them pretty hard sometimes but hasnt broken one yet so I would say they are pretty strong locks. Great product, definitely recommend if you have toddlers running around in the kitchen.

I just purchased our third set of these. The first two sets we used in the kitchen, the third we purchased for the bathrooms now that we are about to begin potty training. These are the best cabinet child proofing product out there. They are slightly time consuming to install but are worth it. Make sure to read the instructions, if you dont it can be slightly confusing. No marks are made on the outside of the cabinets, and they stay completely closed. A magnet key is used to open them. My daughter does have a alphabet fridge magnet toy, thankfully the magnet letters CANNOT open the cabinets. The decorative magnets I use to hang things on the fridge can open them. I would recommend tying a ribbon to the keys so you can hang them on higher cabinet nobs, and find them easily. These can be left unlocked by flicking the switch on the inside which is great for grandparents. I also leave my bathroom cabinets unlocked most the time and only lock them when my daughter is around for a while. I was also surprised how durable they are, our first two sets were installed in kitchen, we then moved and installed them in our new kitchen. None of them broke being removed, and installed a second time very well.

We installed these today. It took about 2 hours to install all 8. 6 on cabinets, 2 on drawers. The two drawers took about 30 minutes each (the bulk of the time), because it is very difficult to mount them in such tight quarters. I suppose the ease of installation will depend on your cabinetry and tools available. It seemed my drill bit was a little dull, and thus a bit harder to drill the pilot holes. We also dont have any of the fancy drills that can go around corners and tight spots, so the drawers had to be removed to place the catch, then put back to measure for the lock, then removed again to drill the lock in. The little sticky templates that come for installation do help - but they arent exact, so you will need to do some eyeballing around and maybe trial and error on the first lock until you figure out how they fit. The locks for the drawers, being mounted vertically, seem to be much more finicky to line up. At first we thought they would be unusable, but were able to find a way to mount them to work. However, Im not sure how confident I am in their holding strength. I would caution that these wont work on all cabinets. The instructions state that inset cabinetry may not work. Luckily, our inset cabinets had enough to mount. I tried to link the instruction manual from the Safety 1st site - but cant look it up there by product number. I would recommend you e-mail them: [email protected] and request an instruction manual before purchasing to ensure they will work on your cabinets. An interesting note: Placing these on my granite counter top caused the latches to unlock. I had thought the key was a magnet, but apparently any large enough piece of metal serves as an unlocker. There must be a bunch of ferrite or other metals in the granite which serves the purpose. I suppose this could be a risk if a child was holding a metal toy within an inch or so of the lock, while attempting to pull open at the same time. Im a first time parent, but with the way my 8 month old is picking things up, Id be surprised if she doesnt figure out how to open this stuff within another 4-6 months. -1 star for what could be an easier installation, especially for vertical mounted -1 star for being able to open with a large piece of metal, and not specifically a magnet as I had thought.

These locks are amazing! This is our 3rd try child proofing our cabinets. First we used the 3M type locks. Those worked pretty well until my little guy used all his strength to bust through them. Next we tried the cheap push down locks you screw into the inside of your drawers and cabinets. Again worked until my son figured out how to put his hand inside and open it himself. He is only 22 months so I still needed some type of safety locks on some of our cabinets. This was our last resort before moving everything out of his reach. My husband installed these locks very easily. They are very secure when locked. My son will go up to them give a tug and say locked and move on. There is no wiggle room for him to mess with them. I also like that you can turn the lock off if you dont want to use the key all the time. Such a nice feature. I actually went back and bought a second pack for our upstairs bathroom cabinets.

My two toddlers love to open their dresser drawers and pull out all of their neatly folded clothes. The traditional baby locks that allow you to open cabinets a couple inches wouldnt work because my kids could still reach the clothes and the wraparound locks dont work for us because my daughter knows how to get them open. These locks to the rescue. They dont allow you to open the drawer at all until unlocked which is great but this perk comes with a few downsides: 1) The key. Were always misplacing the key. Regular fridge magnets arent strong enough and without the key you cant access the contents your securing so weve had some frustrating mornings trying to find the key so I can get my kids dressed. This can obviously be rectified by having more than one key (but theyre expensive!) or not being careless with it like I apparently am. 2) Install. These wouldnt work on our dresser as is because the drawer face was extended past the actual box part of the drawer. This meant that no matter how we installed it, the magnet part of the lock wouldnt reach the piece its supposed to hold on to in order to keep the drawer shut. My husband rectified this by custom cutting pieces of wood to screw into the dresser, which we then attached the locks to. This was a time consuming process since each drawer level and size had to be different but in the end its working perfectly. 3) Finding the lock after installed. Again, really a trivial matter in the grand scheme of things but sometimes I have to slide that key back and forth on the dresser to get the right spot to unlock it. Maybe if your doing cabinets and can instal in the same lower hand corner or something this wouldnt be an issue for you but for us its annoying. Id definitely recommend these locks if the others dont work for your situation. Learn from our mistake and invest in an extra key though.

Like all baby locks, these take a bit of time to install and figure out how to do so. But once installed -- I love these! Theyre worth the extra $ from the super-cheap plastic hook-style latches (my husband tended to push too hard and snap them). I love that I can un-baby-proof any cupboard/drawer at any time by pushing the button if my little one isnt around, then re-lock when needed again. One tip: we placed a tiny piece of masking tape on each drawer/cupboard (on the outside) at the place where we need to hold the magnet to catch the latch to unlock it (this might make more sense when you see how the latches work in person??). This eliminates the guess-work for each one, since no 2 are in the exact same spot in my kitchen! While we love how these work, and I totally recommend them, they may not be for everyones kitchen. We have a fairly narrow u-shaped kitchen (about 5 feet from counter to counter). From any given spot, I am only a step or 2 away from where we keep the key for the baby locks (we keep it on the side of the microwave -- central in the kitchen). If you have a fairly large kitchen, or have an island in the middle that you are frequently walking around, these locks may not be for you, or consider putting out the extra $ for a second key so you can have 2 for easier access.