August Launches $229 Smart Lock With HomeKit Support and Updated Design

[kingtj]

I wouldn't call the concept unnecessary and ridiculous ... just the poor implementations so far (and the high prices).

Keys are pretty old technology and in some ways, I can't believe in 2016 we're still walking around with little pieces of metal on rings, all cut with a bunch of notches, as the way we lock and unlock our doors.

I hate keys because I always wind up with more of them than I want to shove in my pocket at one time. So I remove the ones I don't use often, and then I have no idea which ones are for which locks when I wind up needing one of them again. (Someplace around my house, I've got a ring for the keys I don't carry that includes keys for my parent's front door, back door, side garage door, and a key to get into one of the supply closets at my workplace. I've also got spare keys made for our own house, mixed up with a few keys that I think are left over from the last townhouse we rented and others for locking storage boxes we've owned at one time or another.)

At least I can tell which keys go to our vehicles since they've all gone to those keyfobs with the physical key as part of the fob.

Laziness don't come cheap it seems. Heaven forbid it takes you 2-5 seconds to unlock a lock an actual key. While I love the advancement of technology, some things are unnecessary and ridiculous.

 

[rdlink]

Die in a fire, August. I bought your first gen product. It was never as good as advertised, and your support sucks. You promised HomeKit compatibility for your original product, and then when you decided you weren't going to try to do it you offered first gen buyers a very token promo discount.

For $229 the Schlage Sense is a better product, backed by a better company.

 

[kas23]

Can anyone tell me how this locking mechanism is powered? Does it have to be hard wired somehow or batteries?

 

[ggibson913]

And when your iPhone dies... you're simply locked out of your house?

Actually this fits over the inside of of the deadbolt lock so the key part is still free and you can still use a key if you wish.

Personally I would love for someone to invent a Touch ID door lock. The app on the phone could come on as you approach the lock and use Touch ID to unlock it.

 

[TwoBytes]

i'd buy one if it had a security cam to see who I'm unlocking the door for remotely..

 

[ipedro]

Oh, and while you're at it, just use AC power and stop relying on batteries for a device that is battery-hungry.

What are you talking about? I've had batteries last me a year on my August and pushed my luck despite repeated requests to change the battery, going weeks until I finally did. The battery life is not a problem whatsoever on the August.

How would you connect A/C power to the lock anyway without some serous modifications to the door? This is supposed to be a consumer friendly, easy to install lock and it succeeds in that.
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And when your iPhone dies... you're simply locked out of your house?

That was a problem with the lock while August was building an ecosystem. I still carried a key though I rarely used it. The solution if you didn't have a key and your phone died was to log in to the app from another friend or neighbour's phone but that isn't acceptable for something that can happen regularly. The new solution is to get their smart pin pad which I have in an area close by to the door. You can also use an AppleWatch to open the lock with HomeKit. My Watch never dies through the day since I charge it every night so it works as a backup.
[doublepost=1461871358][/doublepost]

Laziness don't come cheap it seems. Heaven forbid it takes you 2-5 seconds to unlock a lock an actual key. While I love the advancement of technology, some things are unnecessary and ridiculous.

Does your car lock/unlock with a remote? Is it too hard to stick the key in to lock and unlock your car door? Are you lazy? No, it's just more convenient to press a button as you approach the door or walk away.

 

[coolfactor]

Too expensive for what it does.
[doublepost=1461873894][/doublepost]

Laziness don't come cheap it seems. Heaven forbid it takes you 2-5 seconds to unlock a lock an actual key. While I love the advancement of technology, some things are unnecessary and ridiculous.

Quite often, I'm coming home from the office, late at night, and there's no light at the front door. I need to leave everything in the vehicle, carefully find the correct key on my keychain, unlock the door, then return to the vehicle to get my stuff. Having something that intelligently unlocks the door for me would be a tremendous convenience and something I would be very happy to have.

And the number of times when I've been locked out of the house by someone else, without my keys, but I have my phone...?

 

[Makosuke]

Having gotten used to never taking a key fob out of my pocket for my car--it just locks when I walk away, and pressing a door button when I walk up unlocks it--I really like the idea of an automatic lock for my front door as well.

From a design perspective, this thing basically clipping on to your interior deadbolt handle is clever--you don't need to replace anything in your door, and your existing house key still works fine.

Problem is, it's not a doorknob lock, so (assuming the deadbolt doesn't stick, which every deadbolt I've used has started to eventually) you're going to have to leave the doorknob unlocked and just trust that it's locking and unlocking the door correctly when you're not nearby.

Personally, I don't care if I can unlock my door from halfway around the world or with a voice command--I just want the thing to unlock briefly when I walk up and stay locked the rest of the time. The door handles at work already all do exactly this with a card swipe, so it really shouldn't be much of a stretch to have one that does it with something NFC (or bluetooth) from a couple feet away so I can keep the card in my pocket.

Somebody makes that product for me, I'll buy it immediately.

 

[tmiw]

I found the review done by Mr. Locksmith on youtube of this product to be quite enlightening.

First, this is not a lock. It's a mechanism that is attached to certain existing deadbolt locks. If you have a crappy deadbolt, it'll still be one even with this device attached.

During the review, the device began to fail after a few lockings/unlockings.

That review is for the first-gen model. I'd like to see if the shortcomings have been improved with this one.

 

[Sonmi451]

Laziness don't come cheap it seems. Heaven forbid it takes you 2-5 seconds to unlock a lock an actual key. While I love the advancement of technology, some things are unnecessary and ridiculous.

Yet another who claims something is dumb without understanding it's purpose. Just because you can't afford something doesn't dismiss the value it brings to others.
[doublepost=1461876667][/doublepost]

Having gotten used to never taking a key fob out of my pocket for my car--it just locks when I walk away, and pressing a door button when I walk up unlocks it--I really like the idea of an automatic lock for my front door as well.

From a design perspective, this thing basically clipping on to your interior deadbolt handle is clever--you don't need to replace anything in your door, and your existing house key still works fine.

Problem is, it's not a doorknob lock, so (assuming the deadbolt doesn't stick, which every deadbolt I've used has started to eventually) you're going to have to leave the doorknob unlocked and just trust that it's locking and unlocking the door correctly when you're not nearby.

Personally, I don't care if I can unlock my door from halfway around the world or with a voice command--I just want the thing to unlock briefly when I walk up and stay locked the rest of the time. The door handles at work already all do exactly this with a card swipe, so it really shouldn't be much of a stretch to have one that does it with something NFC (or bluetooth) from a couple feet away so I can keep the card in my pocket.

Somebody makes that product for me, I'll buy it immediately.

Um... That's exactly what this does.

 

[godslabrat]

What are you talking about? I've had batteries last me a year on my August and pushed my luck despite repeated requests to change the battery, going weeks until I finally did. The battery life is not a problem whatsoever on the August.

How would you connect A/C power to the lock anyway without some serous modifications to the door? This is supposed to be a consumer friendly, easy to install lock and it succeeds in that.

Maybe a year isn't enough. Were you using the lock on wifi the entire time? And if I want to modify my door, so be it.

 

[tmiw]

Maybe a year isn't enough.

How would a year not be enough? I mean, they recommend changing out the batteries in smoke detectors every six months or so, and they're not exactly smart devices (with the exception of Nest's).

 

[WilliamG]

I found the review done by Mr. Locksmith on youtube of this product to be quite enlightening.

First, this is not a lock. It's a mechanism that is attached to certain existing deadbolt locks. If you have a crappy deadbolt, it'll still be one even with this device attached.

During the review, the device began to fail after a few lockings/unlockings.

That's not this lock. That's the older model. Also, that reviewer was hopeless.

 

[mr_vinjah]

I also purchased the Schlage Sense after watching this space for some time. My purchase was driven by the reputation of Schlage as a lock company, HomeKit integration, and price. For $200 or so, the Schlage offers better value than this device. With the built-in keypad you don't have to rely on others having a smartphone to gain access to your house. My cleaning service comes on a particular day of the week, with different cleaners, very few of which have smart phones. I get to create a code for the cleaning service that is only active on the day(s) they come. It may sound crazy, but not everybody has a smartphone (or wants to sign up for an account with August, from what it sounds like guests have to do).

It's not laziness, it's efficiency and removal of hassle from life. I'm constantly running out the door to pick up my kids and can just hit the lock button as I run out, rather than fumbling for the key, inserting, then putting it back in my pocket as I run down the stairs. Or just let it auto-lock (no geofencing on the Sense). It seems a small thing, but really has changed my relationship with my front door.

 

[WilliamG]

When Schlage offers the Sense in a normal color (i.e. silver, chrome etc), then I might be interested. Until then, I'll likely be picking up the August system for my new house.

 

[Makosuke]

Can this thing tell whether you're inside or outside the house? It seems like if you rely entirely on it and don't lock the knob, it would be liable to unlock itself if you walked up to the front door (with your phone) on the inside to see who was out there, whether you wanted the door unlocked or not at that moment.

If it can't tell the difference, it seems like a safety issue; if it can, then you have to manually unlock the thing on the way out of the house every time, which reduces the seamlessness of it, since it's a deadbolt and not knob lock.

Um... That's exactly what this does.

Unlocks the knob lock on my front door from the outside when I'm in range but leaves it locked otherwise and is always unlocked on the inside?

No it doesn't. It replaces the interior handle of my deadbolt as a way of bypassing the need to replace the doorknob.

Advantage: More secure than a knob lock, probably cheaper since you don't need to replace the whole mechanism.

Disadvantages: If my deadbolt gets out of alignment (again) it stops locking the door, it's going to take considerably more power to lock/unlock a deadbolt than to toggle the mechanism in a knob lock like in commercial installations so the battery life will be shorter, and I assume I'm relying on it to automatically lock when I get out of range rather than the handle taking care of it and only needing to be unlocked at all upon entry.

Also, if I start trusting it and the battery (or location detection) fails on the way into the house I'm liable to slam face first into the door, since there's no indication it unlocked.

Not saying that this makes it a bad product, it just doesn't do what I want a smart lock to if I'm going to spend $250 on it. For that kind of money versus the relatively minor convenience advantage, I'm only going to fork out if it's exactly what I want, and is going to work perfectly for the next 5-10 years.

I want exactly what my car does: The door knob can be opened manually from the inside all the time but stays locked from the outside unless I press a button on the outside while my device (or fob) is in range to indicate I want a few seconds of "unlockedness" with which to open the door. Build that, and I'm in.

The doors at work do exactly this and the batteries last a very long time, the only difference is I need to dip a card instead of pressing a button when something is in range.

 

[JosephAW]

What they don't tell you is this:
1. House not included.
2. Door not included.
3. Batteries not included.
4. You can use a rock to open this door.

 

[godslabrat]

How would a year not be enough? I mean, they recommend changing out the batteries in smoke detectors every six months or so, and they're not exactly smart devices (with the exception of Nest's).

Obviously a door I don't enter, or even have access to, within a year. Satellite offices, vacation homes, etc.

 

[tmiw]

Obviously a door I don't enter, or even have access to, within a year. Satellite offices, vacation homes, etc.

A satellite office staying empty for a year sounds pretty unlikely to me. Assuming that it is, however, the 1 year battery figure probably takes into account normal house usage (2-3 unlock/lock cycles a day or so)--meaning that it could very well last longer than a year.

 

[Sonmi451]

Can this thing tell whether you're inside or outside the house? It seems like if you rely entirely on it and don't lock the knob, it would be liable to unlock itself if you walked up to the front door (with your phone) on the inside to see who was out there, whether you wanted the door unlocked or not at that moment.

If it can't tell the difference, it seems like a safety issue; if it can, then you have to manually unlock the thing on the way out of the house every time, which reduces the seamlessness of it, since it's a deadbolt and not knob lock.
Unlocks the knob lock on my front door from the outside when I'm in range but leaves it locked otherwise and is always unlocked on the inside?

No it doesn't. It replaces the interior handle of my deadbolt as a way of bypassing the need to replace the doorknob.

Advantage: More secure than a knob lock, probably cheaper since you don't need to replace the whole mechanism.

Disadvantages: If my deadbolt gets out of alignment (again) it stops locking the door, it's going to take considerably more power to lock/unlock a deadbolt than to toggle the mechanism in a knob lock like in commercial installations so the battery life will be shorter, and I assume I'm relying on it to automatically lock when I get out of range rather than the handle taking care of it and only needing to be unlocked at all upon entry.

Also, if I start trusting it and the battery (or location detection) fails on the way into the house I'm liable to slam face first into the door, since there's no indication it unlocked.

Not saying that this makes it a bad product, it just doesn't do what I want a smart lock to if I'm going to spend $250 on it. For that kind of money versus the relatively minor convenience advantage, I'm only going to fork out if it's exactly what I want, and is going to work perfectly for the next 5-10 years.

I want exactly what my car does: The door knob can be opened manually from the inside all the time but stays locked from the outside unless I press a button on the outside while my device (or fob) is in range to indicate I want a few seconds of "unlockedness" with which to open the door. Build that, and I'm in.

The doors at work do exactly this and the batteries last a very long time, the only difference is I need to dip a card instead of pressing a button when something is in range.

If you're having problems with your lock (it's out of alignment) don't blame August. Get a locksmith over to fix that. Also you can set the lock to auto lock after a period of time. It doesn't just stay unlocked all the time unless you want it that way.

 

[Makosuke]

If you're having problems with your lock (it's out of alignment) don't blame August. Get a locksmith over to fix that. Also you can set the lock to auto lock after a period of time. It doesn't just stay unlocked all the time unless you want it that way.

I'm not blaming August for this or anything else. It seems like a nice enough product.

It's just not the product I, personally, want for my front door, and if I'm going to pay the money to install a magical tech-front-door, I'd like it to work exactly the way I feel like it should. If I'm willing to rewire my entire living room so the switches do what I think they should, I don't see why I should compromise on a several hundred dollar lock that pretty much works fine now instead of waiting for someone to make the product I really want.

(Also, my wife would almost certainly get pissed at it and tell me to take it off within a week--I'd only be able to sell it to her as an upgrade if it didn't change her routine at all.)

If I lived in a city where having a deadbolt locked was a plus over a simple knob lock, or if I always used my deadbolt and was used to unlocking it every time I left the house, or if I often had people come over while I was out of town, or if I often forgot to lock my door, or whatever else, this might be just the product I want. But none of those apply to me.

Also, of course I could get a locksmith to fix the deadbolt (s--neither works smoothly without fiddling with the door). Thing is, whether due to high humidity or earthquakes or some maintenance problem, I've never lived in a house in my county where the deadbolt didn't go wonky within 2-3 of years of installation, and since I don't really care about the added security of a deadbolt (if somebody really wanted to break in, they'd use the easily accessible windows), having a locksmith come out repeatedly to adjust the thing is a complete waste of time and money, and not something I'm going to bother with. I could probably fix it myself, too, but again, it's not worth the hassle for something I don't need.

Basically, if my tech-doorknob is going to require me to call a locksmith every few years in addition to changing batteries, it's going to outweigh any personal convenience advantage of not having to take a key out of my pocket.

Doesn't make it a bad product, doesn't mean it's anybody's "fault", it just means its not the product for me. Hopefully, eventually, somebody will make that product.