How to open your Gateman door in Korea when the batteries are dead

It happened to me. My door lock had been chiming some kind of happy alarm at me at regular intervals over the past week, meaning it was time to replace the batteries. But every time I heard it, I told myself I would change them tomorrow, to make sure I got every last drop of juice out of the batteries already inside. Well, I came home from work and it was now totally dead. No response. No lights, no welcoming sound, no input. Just nothing. 

I knew you could you use a 9 volt battery from the outside to make it work, but it turns out there was another step I needed.

Basic way of opening a dead door lock

10mag already has a nice article up showing how to use the 9v battery trick to get power to your door lock from the outside. 

Door Keypad Lock Not Working? An Emergency Guide | 10 Magazine

Their guide shows that you just stick the batter on the terminals like so:


These emergency terminals can be in a variety of places on the lock, like so:


It looks like for many Samsung locks, this is all you'll need to do. 

So I was stumped as to why mine wasn't working. I made sure the battery was good by the old fashioned "just lick it" trick. But somehow the keypad wasn't lighting up or responding. 

Not working? Try the star (*) key

I went Navering for my specific Gateman lock model number, and came across this info:

  1. Connect the 9v battery to the terminals
  2. Activate the keypad first by pressing the "*" (star) button
  3. Enter your usual password
  4. Press the * button again

Ah ha. That did it. Turns out on newer models of Gateman locks, you only need to to press your palm to the keypad for it to activate. Mine is an older model "slide up" type, where usually sliding-up works, but in this dead-battery situation, didn't. 

Pressing the * key before and after the normal code worked.

My type of crappy old door lock. Maybe I should splurge for something fancier.

Just hope this might happen to help somebody stuck in the lurch when they arrive home someday. 


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