You can only do this on the phone when it’s unlockedOn the Aqara site, it says that you can ask Siri to open the door. This might be a stupid question, but how does one prevent someone saying that fairly loudly from the crack at the bottom of the door into the house and have a HomePod unlock it?
This lock has nothing to do with the mechanical safety of the original lock. It just turns the knob on the inside of the door so the lockpicking lower has to actually hack the lock to open it remotely in that case.Hmmm, give them to 'The Lock Picking Lawer' on YouTube then we'll see how robust they are.
Breaking a window would be a whole lot cheaper than destroying a door. Keeping a spare key hidden somewhere would have saved your $300 investment.$300 to replace a $25 keyed lock is just wrong. Especially if it’s in need of batteries a phone/watch and most likely a spare key for when it just doesn’t work. I have a $50 electronic lock on my inner garage door and a year after installing it (and liking it) I came home late from an over seas trip and it was just dead. No warning no nothing just dead. So at 1am after a 8hr flight and two hour car ride I had to break into my own home because the lock crapped out. Needless to say I was not happy and it cost me $800 to fix the door which now has a keyed lock again.
this makes your Mechanical/Keyed door smart. This only adds a smart latch turning piece to the inside of your house/door. Then a Keypad on the outside. Both of these parts have batteries and can die at any time...but the lock on the outside has NOT changed...you can use your key at any time if both batteries are dead.$300 to replace a $25 keyed lock is just wrong. Especially if it’s in need of batteries a phone/watch and most likely a spare key for when it just doesn’t work. I have a $50 electronic lock on my inner garage door and a year after installing it (and liking it) I came home late from an over seas trip and it was just dead. No warning no nothing just dead. So at 1am after a 8hr flight and two hour car ride I had to break into my own home because the lock crapped out. Needless to say I was not happy and it cost me $800 to fix the door which now has a keyed lock again.
For anyone who has the questions I had to answer for myself:
- You do not need the Aqara Matter hub despite what the Aqara app appears to suggest through omission of any HomeKit related setup guidance.
- Setup was a pain, but the lock works great when in place.
The process I took which ultimately (after hours of fiddling) was successful:
- Pair with Aqara app (Bluetooth) by scanning the Aqara code under the cover of the locking mechanism.
- Update firmware (when prompted to use the beta versions at this early stage, I selected yes)
- I attempted and failed repeatedly at this step to pair with my homekit setup, removing the battery, pressing 'setup' etc. So I factory reset it by holding down the two bottom-most buttons on the keypad at the same time, and entered my pin when prompted.
- When ready to go again, instead of pairing with Aqara I paired with HomeKit directly by
- Adding an accessory with the Home app, and scanning the Matter code under the locking mechanism cover.
- Waiting several minutes while "setting up" lingered in the home view.
- I then paired again with Aqara per step 1 to calibrate the lock (as the lock defaulted to the European orientation when used through HomeKit, and the lock/unlock action reported it was doing something, but the mechanism only beeped while performing no mechanical action until after calibration was complete).
Much love!
How exactly do you know it’s running Matter?
I reached out to customer support to ask if the hub is necessary for thread/matter or if it’s built into the device itself. Representative stated that you still need the hub for those features. Disappointing if true. If true, likely just going to go with the tried & true Schlage.