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Apple Stops Selling iPhone-Connected Smart Locks from August and Kevo
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Same for me. It's been working great! Especially since the software and the lock firmware update a month or so ago. Previously it would work immediately about 9 out of 10 times (the other 1 out of 10 I would have to pull out my phone and it would work right away). Now with the updates its probably 98% or 99% awesome.
I just wish the kevo plus was cheaper. $70 additional to the locks for remote lock/unlock is a bit steep.
Edit - I have been using the locks for about 8 months (since mid April, 2015).
I really hope that is not the reason. If so, it will be my reason for dropping Apple products. HomeKit is not proven yet and there are several other home connectivity products that are well established and reliable.
And if it will work as smoothly as ApplePay on my Apple Watch, they can TAKE MY MONEY!!!
For the Holiday's, introducing the new Apple Lock. Just hold your phone up and authenticated with your fingerprint. 
Your Schlage link is broken. In that it's no longer available on the site either even though it is homekit compatible. Meaning the real reason they are removing those products is a) none of them are good enough yet to be recommended by Apple or Apple is planning on releasing their own door lock soon and they don't want people buying current ones for all their home doors during the holiday shopping season.
Apple are a real bunch of ******s for wanting to sell home automation products that support its own standard optimized for the phone in your pocket, and for allowing you to buy non-HomeKit products anywhere else you choose.
I've had the August for about a year. I don't use the auto-lock feature but it always unlocks automatically when I walk within range... there is a HomeKit option for the August which I haven't tried (it's sold separately) so I'm not really sure why Apple pulled it from their stores.
My Kevo has been flaky right out of the box (a little over a year). Yesterday the damn thing locked when I had the door open checking the mailbox and bumped the lock. My phone was inside on my kitchen counter - not good!
I never have been able to get the Kevo Plus device to work correctly. The two times it worked it would only do it while at home (what's the point?) and took almost a full minute to lock/unlock. Then after one use it became unusable again without a reset. Not to mention the stupid thing must be plugged into an ethernet port on your router. Welcome to 1992.
August Smart Lock 2 with homekit is on preorder, and the remote access device just plugs into a wall outlet and taps your wifi to control the lock.
I never have been able to get the Kevo Plus device to work correctly. The two times it worked it would only do it while at home (what's the point?) and took almost a full minute to lock/unlock. Then after one use it became unusable again without a reset. Not to mention the stupid thing must be plugged into an ethernet port on your router. Welcome to 1992.
August Smart Lock 2 with homekit is on preorder, and the remote access device just plugs into a wall outlet and taps your wifi to control the lock.
Actually you're right and thank you for bringing up this point. My understanding, from what I've read, is that the reason HomeKit has been a little slow to catch on is because manufacturers have to comply with Apple's stringent encryption requirements. If you're an iPhone user you want a HomeKit product.
I got the Schlage Sense about a week ago, installation went beautifully, works like butter inside the home, but...
Outside the home it's a complete clusterf**k. I have two HomeKit devices, the Sense and an Ecobee3 and BOTH don't work outside the home. I've gotten both work about twice in the past week. Even with an Apple TV 4, all my devices updated to the latest iOS / tvOS, signing out/in of my iCloud, resetting my devices, etc, I cannot for the life of me get it to work reliably. Siri always barks that "Sorry, I can't do that right now".
I have an open case with Apple that's been escalated to an engineer. My guess is that because of Apple's strict stance on security, troubleshooting the connection between Siri on your iPhone outside the home and your Apple TV 4 inside your home may very well be almost impossible for even the engineers as everything is encrypted.
Before I pushed the Apple senior advisor to escalate, they were telling me it's a manufacturer issue. I would understand if I only had 1 HomeKit device and it worked sporadically, but I have two and they both don't really work from outside, so it leads me to believe that it is NOT a Schlage or Ecobee issue, but an Apple / HomeKit / AppleTV issue.
Thing is, I could live without Siri from outside. The Ecobee is Wifi enabled and has an app so you can use it from outside, not so with the Schlage. If the communications between your device and iCloud / Apple TV isn't working properly, the Schlage app WILL NOT WORK from outside the home (since it either needs Bluetooth or iCloud connectivity with your Apple TV at home). So tell me, wtf is the point of having a smart lock if I can't check the lock status away from the house?
HomeKit is currently leaving a pretty sour taste in my mouth. By far the worst experience with Apple technology I've ever had.
Outside the home it's a complete clusterf**k. I have two HomeKit devices, the Sense and an Ecobee3 and BOTH don't work outside the home. I've gotten both work about twice in the past week. Even with an Apple TV 4, all my devices updated to the latest iOS / tvOS, signing out/in of my iCloud, resetting my devices, etc, I cannot for the life of me get it to work reliably. Siri always barks that "Sorry, I can't do that right now".
I have an open case with Apple that's been escalated to an engineer. My guess is that because of Apple's strict stance on security, troubleshooting the connection between Siri on your iPhone outside the home and your Apple TV 4 inside your home may very well be almost impossible for even the engineers as everything is encrypted.
Before I pushed the Apple senior advisor to escalate, they were telling me it's a manufacturer issue. I would understand if I only had 1 HomeKit device and it worked sporadically, but I have two and they both don't really work from outside, so it leads me to believe that it is NOT a Schlage or Ecobee issue, but an Apple / HomeKit / AppleTV issue.
Thing is, I could live without Siri from outside. The Ecobee is Wifi enabled and has an app so you can use it from outside, not so with the Schlage. If the communications between your device and iCloud / Apple TV isn't working properly, the Schlage app WILL NOT WORK from outside the home (since it either needs Bluetooth or iCloud connectivity with your Apple TV at home). So tell me, wtf is the point of having a smart lock if I can't check the lock status away from the house?
HomeKit is currently leaving a pretty sour taste in my mouth. By far the worst experience with Apple technology I've ever had.
For everyone that is having HomeKit issues, open a case with Apple. You will not be charged. This is their mess and the more people open cases that get escalated to engineers, the better chance we have of actually getting fixes for this.
My guess is that 100% of the remote HomeKit issues are related to spotty connection between the iPhone, Siri, iCloud and the Apple TV inside the house, even if you follow Apple's guidelines to the letter.
My guess is that 100% of the remote HomeKit issues are related to spotty connection between the iPhone, Siri, iCloud and the Apple TV inside the house, even if you follow Apple's guidelines to the letter.
One thing that helps with my scalage sense was to turn off the sleep in 30 minutes to never on my apple tv. Still remote access is very spotty. It appears with the apple tv asleep, you can't access the lock at all.
I agree overall, home kit is a huge apple failure. I'm used to Apple bringing products that just work. HomeKit does not.
I agree overall, home kit is a huge apple failure. I'm used to Apple bringing products that just work. HomeKit does not.
Yep, first thing I did was turn off Apple TV auto sleep, still no joy.
It's so damn frustrating. As I said, I can deal without the remote-access Siri, but for the lock, you absolutely need the iCloud connectivity since the Schlage Sense isn't an internet-connected device like the Ecobee.
Pretty well defeats the purpose of having it if I can't use it outside the house.
It's so damn frustrating. As I said, I can deal without the remote-access Siri, but for the lock, you absolutely need the iCloud connectivity since the Schlage Sense isn't an internet-connected device like the Ecobee.
Pretty well defeats the purpose of having it if I can't use it outside the house.
Thats just it, they apparently don't allow you control non-homekit products with your expensive iPhone that you paid for.
See this is just the thing, I don't have any problems with my non-homekit remote controlled home. Just like I don't have any problems with data and file sharing as long as its not iCloud. I've not once lost my dropbox files. Apple makes hardware, to think they can lock us in to just their crappy cloud and home control stacks is not very smart, because it will drive people away from their hardware.
I would imagine it is at least as safe as a regular lock, someone might be able to hack it but they could also pick your normal lock.
I'm still waiting for a PoE or other wired "smart" lock... You can't trust ISM band wireless with such an important task... Nor batteries.
It's probably the least thought out part of the IoT. Lots of devices equal lots of interference.
5Ghz is already getting crowded in my neighborhood, despite the short range. There are 5 houses within 400 feet LOS of my house and I can see 3, 5Ghz WiFi APs (other than my 2) from my MBP when I'm sitting in my living room.
I've mitigated some of my issues by setting up 4 different WiFi networks with the APs all spread apart (closest to the "center of action" for each task).
1x AirPort Extreme serving laptops and personal devices on 2.4Ghz/5Ghz (ch11 and ch149).
1x AirPort Extreme 2.4Ghz/5Ghz for streaming devices like Apple TV, Roku, and Smart TVs (ch 6 and ch46).
1x MikroTik medium power 2.4Ghz AP for just surveillance cameras (ch 1).
1x MikroTik medium power 2.4Ghz AP on a span channel for home automation(ch 4).
All my 2.4Ghz APs are on 20Mhz mode. Using the 40Mhz mode on most APs just makes interference more of an issue and generally makes the error-free range much smaller (for not a whole lot of real world speed). Sticking to the 20Mhz mode also seemed to give bluetooth a much larger range for me. Despite having all that WiFi in the house, I can still get 60-90 feet with my bluetooth audio devices.
It's probably the least thought out part of the IoT. Lots of devices equal lots of interference.
5Ghz is already getting crowded in my neighborhood, despite the short range. There are 5 houses within 400 feet LOS of my house and I can see 3, 5Ghz WiFi APs (other than my 2) from my MBP when I'm sitting in my living room.
I've mitigated some of my issues by setting up 4 different WiFi networks with the APs all spread apart (closest to the "center of action" for each task).
1x AirPort Extreme serving laptops and personal devices on 2.4Ghz/5Ghz (ch11 and ch149).
1x AirPort Extreme 2.4Ghz/5Ghz for streaming devices like Apple TV, Roku, and Smart TVs (ch 6 and ch46).
1x MikroTik medium power 2.4Ghz AP for just surveillance cameras (ch 1).
1x MikroTik medium power 2.4Ghz AP on a span channel for home automation(ch 4).
All my 2.4Ghz APs are on 20Mhz mode. Using the 40Mhz mode on most APs just makes interference more of an issue and generally makes the error-free range much smaller (for not a whole lot of real world speed). Sticking to the 20Mhz mode also seemed to give bluetooth a much larger range for me. Despite having all that WiFi in the house, I can still get 60-90 feet with my bluetooth audio devices.
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I have the Ecobee3 as well and it works flawlessly in and out of the home. Dumb question, is Siri supposed to be able to control things away from the home? If I use the app for the thermostat while at work it works fine, but I don't think Siri can handle commands out of the house???
I don't understand what that means. My point is that just because Apple doesn't sell these devices in their stores doesn't mean you can't get them anywhere else.