Wink Update Brings Support for August Smart Locks Into Connected Home App

[MacRumors]

Connected smart home company Wink today announced the addition of August Smart Locks into its collection of supported brands, which already includes GE, Nest, Philips, Schlage, and more. Now, any users who have an August Smart Lock paired with an August Connect (which provides remote access to the lock) can add their lock into the Wink mobile app on iOS.

The advantage of using Wink, similar to HomeKit, is for users with a wide variety of smart home products -- Wink lets them add, organize, and control multiple devices in one place. From Wink, users will now be able to monitor the status of the August Smart Lock, lock and unlock it while not at home, and get push notifications when it's used. These features are available in the individual August Home app [Direct Link] as well.

Integration with Wink Shortcuts will further expand August Smart Lock functionality and allow users to more seamlessly automate their homes. Wink gave a few examples of these shortcuts in its press release today:

For example, a "Goodnight" Shortcut could be used to automatically lock your front door while turning off the lights and adjusting the temperature with just one tap in the Wink app. With an "I'm Home" Robot, unlocking your August Smart Lock can trigger the hallway lights to illuminate and your smart blinds to open.

Wink strives to bring the best products from the most trusted brands together, and we're very excited to expand our smart home security footprint with Wink + August Home.

Wink says that approximately 2.3 million smart home products have been added onto its platform to date, and tells its users they can continue to expect new partnerships in the future.

The Wink app is available to download on the App Store for free [Direct Link]. For those interested in getting started with smart home products, Wink has a dedicated section of its website with various starter kits and packages to get things up and running.

Article Link: Wink Update Brings Support for August Smart Locks Into Connected Home App

 

[3587]

Confused... Apple HomeKit works with ALL my devices... Well, except my PowerView shades.

 

[jmh600cbr]

Confused... Apple HomeKit works with ALL my devices... Well, except my PowerView shades.

nest also doesnt work with homekit but i way prefer using homekit than going out and paying 200$ for a hub made by a third party just to use a nest.

 

[thisisnotmyname]

Confused... Apple HomeKit works with ALL my devices... Well, except my PowerView shades.

There are a lot of home automation products on the market that do not support Home Kit and in fact there's always been a bit of a war of standards for control systems. Various third parties are trying to maintain relevance in the face of Apple, Amazon, and Google getting into the ecosystem by supporting more devices. Apple also hasn't provided as much focus as they could to bringing more products into the fold more quickly (and frankly into providing a better user experience to Home Kit in general). All of this will shake out soon though and we'll see devices simultaneously supporting two or three major players (with all of the others fading into irrelavancy). The lower end won't support Home Kit because of a more stringent auditing process though.

 

[paulrbeers]

nest also doesnt work with homekit but i way prefer using homekit than going out and paying 200$ for a hub made by a third party just to use a nest.

First off, the Wink hub starts at $60 for the first gen, and $100 for the second gen. And since Homekit only works with wifi and bluetooth, you are pretty much stuck unable to use zwave and zigbee as well as a host of other bluetooth and wifi devices that didn't pay Apple to get the homekit certification/hardware. This allows one to use much cheaper devices (I've purchased simple Zwave plugin devices for only $20 and zwave door sensors for $15). The cost savings alone more than pays for the hub. Not to mention I am no longer fully reliant on Apple. My Android friends are free to use the app. I can use alexa to control my hub. It all works and all because I plopped down a small amount of cash.

 

[BrianKonarsMac]

First off, the Wink hub starts at $60 for the first gen, and $100 for the second gen. And since Homekit only works with wifi and bluetooth, you are pretty much stuck unable to use zwave and zigbee as well as a host of other bluetooth and wifi devices that didn't pay Apple to get the homekit certification/hardware. This allows one to use much cheaper devices (I've purchased simple Zwave plugin devices for only $20 and zwave door sensors for $15). The cost savings alone more than pays for the hub. Not to mention I am no longer fully reliant on Apple. My Android friends are free to use the app. I can use alexa to control my hub. It all works and all because I plopped down a small amount of cash.

Do you use Wink and how do you like it? Have you used that in wall 'tablet' controller? Looks cool, I've been thinking about using that myself.

 

[morcutt11]

I use Wink (and Amazon Echo) with a bunch of Z-wave switches and outlets throughout my home. Wink is pretty responsive for the first request to activate or deactivate a light or outlet. However, follow-up requests take a while. I'm not sure if it is related to two-way communication to the z-wave devices with the Wink awaiting confirmation from the first request or what it is. The other issue is, of course, Wink isn't HomeKit compatible and doesn't appear to have any desire to be (I've seen people complaining to Wink for two years and Wink's response is always "we're considering it"). With something like a Nest or Ecobee, there is a fair amount of intelligence in the device, along with Internet connectivity, making them easy to add to HomeKit, but dumb devices like switches and outlets don't have this advantage and rely on a hub (Wemo is an exception to this but I think that they too still aren't HomeKit compliant) so if the hub doesn't offer HomeKit integration (like Wink, Insteon, and pretty much everyone else out there), then you're S.O.L.

 

[mwd25]

Do most of these products run through your wifi....bluetooth......or wifi + bluetooth. Im interested in getting a lock and a couple lights but prefer bluetooth. I really dont want to be adding things to my network wifi, that has a lot on it already. From what Ive heard, a lot of these products use a "always on" connection.

 

[paulrbeers]

Do you use Wink and how do you like it? Have you used that in wall 'tablet' controller? Looks cool, I've been thinking about using that myself.

I love my wink hub. I even upgraded to the Wink 2. I have a Vera Plus, but frankly I've never taken it out of the box. I use Amazon Echos to interact hub to control my lights, outlets, doors, garage, thermostat (ecobee3), etc. Since Wink added local control, I can open a door and lights almost instantaneously come on. This is especially nice coming into the house from the garage. I have sensors on all the doors and wink lets me know when they've been opened if I set my "alarm". I've let people into my house when I was multiple states away using a Kwikset Zwave lock. I have my front lights come on at dusk, and turn off at a given time of night. I even have sensors on my freezer and secondary refrigerator in my basement that sends a notice to my phone if the doors are left open for more than 2 minutes (silly kids not getting the doors shut). The other part I love, is that it is all in one app (wink) instead of needing separate apps for things like my garage door, thermostat, and philips hue lights. I do wish Wink officially supported more devices, but most just work off of Zwave or Zigbee natively so even if they aren't officially supported, many still work.

The beauty of hubs like Wink and Smarthings is the ability to use more mainstream and cheaper devices that aren't homekit compatible. The amount of money I saved by a couple buying non-homekit compatible devices completely made up for the small amount of money for the hub.