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Swedish lock giant Assa Abloy has laid off the vast majority of staff at Level Home, the California smart lock pioneer it acquired in a high-profile deal less than two years ago, in a move that has triggered uncertainty over the future of the brand's cloud services and its hundreds of thousands of users.

An internal meeting recording obtained by The Verge reveals that Peter Boriskin, chief technology officer for Assa Abloy North America, and Kimberly Cummins, head of human resources for the region, told employees their roles were being eliminated "effective immediately" as part of a "larger restructuring of the Level business." Only a small core team is being retained to complete a forthcoming multi-family residential door lock management product, people familiar with the matter said.

Level Home co-founder and CEO John Martin and co-founder and chief technology officer Ken Goto have both departed the company, The Verge reported.

An anonymous source close to the situation told the technology news outlet: "I think consumers should know that Assa Abloy does not have the capability to maintain this user base." The source noted that Level has hundreds of thousands of active users, a significant proportion of whom rely on cloud-connected features.

The restructuring has exposed a sharp contrast between internal plans and the company's public messaging. Assa Abloy spokesperson Rebecca Samuel denied that Level is being wound down, insisting the group "continues to develop, sell and support Level lock products" and adding that "Level is not part of Kwikset – the two brands remain independent." However, the internal meeting recording disclosed by The Verge detailed a plan to integrate the remaining Level operations into Kwikset, another Assa Abloy brand.

'Invisible' smart lock that won industry acclaim

Level Home was founded in Redwood City in 2016 by John Martin and Ken Goto. Its defining innovation was packing all the electronics of a smart lock – battery, motor, Bluetooth chip and sensors – inside a standard deadbolt form factor, making the lock virtually indistinguishable from a conventional mechanical device. The "invisible smart lock" concept attracted widespread attention and venture backing.

According to data from CB Insights and PitchBook, Level Home raised $171m (£134m) in equity funding across three rounds before the acquisition: a $10m Series A in December 2016, a $71m Series B in October 2019 led by Walmart, US homebuilder Lennar and Hut 8 Ventures, and a $100m Series C in November 2021 led by Cox Communications, part of which was used to acquire smart apartment platform Dwelo.

Assa Abloy completed its purchase of Level Home on 10 September 2024. At the time, the deal was widely seen as a strategic move to entrench the group's position in the North American residential smart lock market, where it already owned brands including Yale, August Home, Kwikset, Baldwin and Weiser.

North American housing headwinds

The swift dismantling of the Level team comes against a backdrop of persistent weakness in the North American residential market. Assa Abloy's first-quarter results, published on 28 April 2026, showed group sales down 5.8% year-on-year to approximately SEK35.75bn (£2.7bn), missing FactSet consensus estimates. While organic sales managed 2% growth, the North American residential segment recorded a clear decline, which the company blamed on sustained high interest rates, a sluggish housing market and the impact of severe winter storms.

Throughout the 2025 financial year, North American residential was one of the group's most challenged divisions. It posted a low-to-mid single-digit contraction in the third quarter and flat sales in the fourth. Chief executive Nico Delvaux told an earnings call that the US housing market had "bottomed out" but cautioned that any recovery was likely to be driven more by replacement and upgrade demand than by new home construction, according to MarketScreener. Meanwhile, global technologies and non-residential commercial segments continued to perform strongly.

Analysts at DNB Markets forecast Assa Abloy's full-year 2026 sales at around SEK166.88bn and see the adjusted operating margin improving from 16.5% to 17.1%. Against that backdrop, integrating and resource-optimising some acquired businesses fits a wider pattern of margin-focused management across large industrial groups.

Cloud anxiety and the ghost of Kevo

For existing Level lock owners, the most immediate question is how long the brand’s products will continue to receive full support. Technology publications have pointed out that Level’s local features – including Apple Home Key tap-to-unlock and Matter protocol connectivity – do not rely on cloud servers and should, in theory, continue to function even if cloud support is eventually withdrawn. The physical key, of course, remains entirely unaffected.

However, cloud-dependent functions such as the Level mobile app, auto-unlock based on geolocation, door status push notifications and access history logs are entirely reliant on Assa Abloy's willingness to maintain backend services. And the historical precedent is far from reassuring.

On 14 November 2025, Assa Abloy's Kwikset brand shut down the app and cloud services for its Kevo smart lock with just 30 days' notice. The closure affected not only the Kwikset Kevo line but also the Baldwin Evolved and Weiser Kevo sub-brands. Kwikset’s website stated bluntly that after the shutdown, the Kevo lock would "revert to a standard deadbolt that can only be operated by a physical key and fob."

According to Mordor Intelligence, the global smart lock market was valued at about $3.23bn in 2025 and is projected to grow at a compound annual rate of 15%, reaching $7.52bn by 2031. In a market expanding at that pace, the decision by the world's largest lock maker to restructure a recently acquired innovation team has reignited a long-running industry debate about the life cycle of internet-connected hardware when start-ups are absorbed by incumbents.

As Spanish technology outlet WWWhatsnew observed in its commentary on the layoffs: "Perhaps the safest approach for consumers is to regard their Level as a beautifully designed mechanical lock – because its smart features could become a memory sooner than they expect."