New home door locks can be opened or closed online

What if locking the front door of your home while you're away were as easy as hopping on the Internet?

Ingersoll-Rand Co.'s Schlage unit is showing off door locks that can be wirelessly set or opened via the Internet, from a mobile phone or a computer.

The battery-operated locks have keypads that are locked and unlocked with 4-digit access codes (or old-fashioned keys, as a backup). Users who forget to lock a door and want to enter their code remotely can hop onto a Web portal or an application added to their mobile phones. These password-protected portals also let people change, activate or disable the codes.

The company says the wireless signals sent to the locks are encrypted.

A Schlage kit that includes the lock and the wireless bridge to communicate with the locks sells for $299, plus there's a $13 monthly fee to use the applications that let the locks be controlled remotely. The system, which Schlage bills as the first of its kind, will be available in late October.