I’m solidly leaning towards a Schlage Connect Lock due to its local only Zwave capabilities (which has the benefit of also extending battery life). I was strongly considering the Aqara U100 for its many features, but based on what I’ve seen I can foresee it being a nightmare to get working locally with home assistant and the need for a phone app makes me fear for long term support.
I use the Schlage Encode for other houses and love the way it looks and how easy it is to setup and use. I really wish they would make a Zwave version with the same hardware.
So before I jump in and buy the Schlage Connect, is there anybody who has experience with either of the locks I’ve mentioned? Feel free to chime in if you have a different lock that you think beats out these.
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If my experience in both IT and lock picking has taught me anything, it’s to stay away from anything “smart” 'nd also don’t secure your house with schlage or masterlock
Edit:
Abus, zeiss and squire are good choices in locks though
Picking a lock is a lot more likely than somebody finding an exploit and hacking your lock. In either case, locks are minimal theft deterrent, not prevention.
Well many smart locks can be exploited physically rather than hacking wise.
On the other hand, flipper zero can probably exploit a lot of 2.4GHz locks.
So can nearly all physical locks you’ll find on a house door. The ones nearly everyone puts on their doors are super simple. Most thieves won’t bother though, if your lock poses even the slightest challenge they’ll go through a window if they really want in.
The point I think is that while most locks are really easy to pick relatively, the people that it’s really easy to pick to, aren’t the same people robbing your house.
The ones that sit and practice picking the locks are the ones that install them, or come out when you’ve misplaced your keys and get you in the house.
The robbers are mainly opportunists that wander around looking for open doors and windows, knock to see if you’re home then try to force a way in.
That’s why my smartlock doesn’t have a keyhole.
what happens when the battery runs out?
Our smart lock has an external 9v battery plug so the worst case is that you will have to walk to the store and buy a battery before you can unlock using the keypad.
But that hasn’t happened to us yet because the lock will warn you before it runs out by beeping.
That’s risky. Anyone who can access this can basically blow in some real voltage and power to burn the hardware.
Yeah and anyone can throw a rock through the window.
Good question! It has backup battery prongs you can hold a 9v up to in case of battery failure to power the lock.
Whatever lock you think of, check the lockpicking lawyer YT channel for it. If he has reviewed it, check how he rates it. In general, he opens those things in seconds.
To be fair he opens everything in seconds.
General rule of thumb for me is, if LPL can’t open it in 30 seconds or less, I’m probably safe from most of the fuckwits that live in my area.
Nearly everything. There are a few locks he can’t actually pick, and some others where he said he would use them himself, which I would take as a “basically unpickable for anyone else”.
I have no idea whether a smart lock ever entered this category.
I’ve actually been eyeing the Yale Assure Lock 2 because I want a keyless option (it’s Z-wave as well). Does anybody here have experience with that one?
I have one. You still need the app to setup the lock, which is unfortunate. Once it was setup I just deleted the app.
Thanks for the info. That’s odd since most Z-wave devices can enter pairing mode with a button press.
How do you like the lock? Any issues with it?
The lock itself is fine. I can do pretty much everything with the zwave once paired. Locking and unlocking are pretty quick and easy. You can setup a few different numbers too (haven’t played with it too much once setup). It has a sensor to detect if the door is open, but it’s pretty slow. Sometimes I can open and close the door before it knows it’s open. More of a door left open sensor.
Our door lock it well aligned, but it’s yours is off I could see it being an issue, but that’s any motorized lock.
Battery life seems pretty good considering we use the lock multiple times a day. Just 4 AA batteries I Believe. It also beeps at you when you lock/unlock before it dies so you have a fair warning.
Schlage’s Zwave/Zigbee stuff works really well with Home Assistant. Ours have been hooked up since day 1 and don’t have any issues that I know of
I’ve been really happy with the U-tec U-bolt zwave locks. Strong locks and never had an issue with connectivity.
We use a few Schlage connect zwave deadbolts, and they have been basically rock solid. We’re using them through Smartthings, but home assistant should work just as well. We have hardwired zwave light switches next to all of them, apparently that can help with the reliability since they will act as zwave repeaters in case the lock doesn’t pick up the signal first time - especially for changing the codes.
Are they a perfect lock that no one will be able to pick? Probably not, but it’s a lot faster to just put a brick through your window no matter how good your locks are.
I have recently replaced two Schlage Zwave locks with the Encode locks because have trouble with zwave at the front door. The zwave locks perform well and the back door lock always worked 100% of the time, integrated well with home assistant and HomeKit bridge.
The encode locks are more attractive and the lock mechanism is nicer and a lot quieter than the locks I replaced.
My only contribution is to stay away from ultraloq. I have their zwave deadbolt and it’s terrible. I will probably replace it with something schlage.
I’ve been fairly happy with Alfred locks using ZigBee. There’s still a Bluetooth+App component to those as well for adding choices but you don’t need it to use ZigBee for locking/unlocking or viewing status.
Don’t use the wifi bridge though. I briefly tried that and it connects to some address hosted in AliCloud of all frigging places
I have a zwave Yale Assure lock that works well for me. I like that the “smart” module can be swapped out without replacing the entire lock
