Best Of CES 2022: Masonite M-Pwr Smart Door

Masonite M-Pwr Smart Door gives us, and hopefully its competitors and other OEMs, a future for smart home entries to strive for

It isn’t often that a door earns our Best of CES Award but the Masonite M-Pwr Smart Door was easily one of the best products shown at the 2022 iteration of the event. That’s not necessarily because it’s the best-looking door around, of course. The M-Pwr Smart Door is, on its face, a fairly standard fiberglass-paned entryway. Albeit, subjectively speaking, among the more aesthetically pleasing.

What sets Masonite M-Pwr Smart Door apart and earns its Best of CES 2022 Award from us, however, is the technology it includes. And that’s because M-Pwr comes with all of the security a modern door really needs, installed and ready to go.

Security is built into the door itself, alleviating the usual extra hassle

Now, it’s fair to point out that pricing wasn’t provided for Masonite M-Pwr Smart Door. And, as of its CES announcement all the way through its receipt of our Best of CES 2022 Award, the Masonite M-Pwr Smart Door is limited to just one home builder. What’s more, that builder is limited to just one place. Namely, Charlotte, North Carolina — although Masonite does plan to expand over the course of the year.

But, in terms of innovation M-Pwr points to a trend that really needs to emerge much more widely. Embedded in its fiberglass panel, the door features both a smart lock and a video doorbell. At the top, there’s also an LED light bar that acts as a welcome light. Since the smart lock and doorbell in question are the Ring Video Doorbell and a Yale smart lock, those are fully integrable with a smart home environment. And, thanks to Masonite software, so is the light.

All of the features that we’d expect from those gadgets are included, in fact. So, once the door is installed, the front entryway is taken care of. There’s no need for the homeowner to install or set up any further gadgets.

Better still, the hardware is connected through the door to power. And there’s a patent-pending backup system in place on that front too, that can last up to 24-hours all on its own. So, even if the power to the home goes out, those systems are still running.

This is more significant than it might seem

Whether or not the Masonite M-Pwr Smart Door becomes more widely available, or even becomes available to end consumers rather than just builders, remains to be seen. However, including all of the smart gadgets a front door might require in a single frame feels like a masterstroke. One of those ideas that, after the fact, seems like an obvious decision to make.

That’s especially true for a smart door using pre-existing components to accomplish the goal. More so when those have compatibility with multiple AI-driven smart home environments. Integrating cleanly with Google Home, Amazon Alexa, and other DIY ecosystems. And just as neatly earning Masonite and its M-Pwr Smart Door our Best of CES 2022 Award.