How to Choose a Smart Lock: August Yale Smart Lock Review
Smart locks can be the most wonderful upgrade for your home, but understanding them can be the most confusing thing ever! I’ll break down all the learnings I had while getting up to speed on all the products out on the market to determine what smart lock I needed to provide the best security and usability for my own homes, including a rental unit.
What’s a Smart Lock?
A smart lock is a rather broad term, and can mean many things to different users. I’ll go over all the features to consider such as functionality, remote controllability, and integration with smart home systems.
Keypad entry
This is the simplest feature to explain, which allows a programmable pin number to unlock your door.
Remotely programmable keypad
A simple feature that allows you to use your app to set a pin to unlock the door.
Smart-phone unlocking
Unlocking a door using your phone - whether it be by knowing you’ve arrived at the home, or opening the app to touch a button to unlock.
Internet-controllable unlocking
Unlocking a door using your phone when you’re not home to let someone else in who might not have access.
Homekit and Google Home integration
Connecting your lock to a smart home system and setting up routines like saying, “Hey, Google, I’m going to bed” and having the lights turn off, the garage door closed, and the doors automatically lock.
The Needs I Had for a Smart Lock
I needed all of the above but wondered why all the locks on the market ranged from $50 to $300–what was the difference? I’ll break it all down on why I went with the Yale August Smart Lock.
Many of the entry level smart locks offer a programmable pin entry, but if they’re not connected to the Internet through a bridge, won’t offering the following:
Won’t send you alerts on when someone enters using a code
You can’t set a schedule or expire a code
You can’t unlock the door for someone if they forgot the pin
This keypad lock was inexpensive and worked ok for a utility closet or our basement, where a pin was all I needed.
Some smart locks offer Bluetooth and App connectivity, but without an Internet bridge, won’t offer:
Unlocking the door remotely away from home
Won’t send you alerts on when someone enters using a code
Certain sleek smart locks like the original August lock offer the unit that sits on top of your deadbolt on the inside of the door, offers the Internet bridge and app control, but won’t offer:
Pin access (additional remote keypad add-on sometimes available)
And some smart locks like several versions of the Yale smart lock offer the pin pad, Internet bridge and app control, but won’t offer:
Analog key access if the batteries go dead
Why I Chose the Yale Smart Lock In The End
To get all the features without exception, I had to get the Yale Assure Lock Touchscreen which offers the touch screen pin pad, Internet bridge so I can program codes for temporary guests, receive notifications of use, unlock remotely if they’re away, have it integrate with my Google Home, use GPS and local proximity to unlock automatically when I get home, and last but not least, use a key to unlock if all else fails.
I have two of these locks installed and have been pretty happy with them so far. One of them was installed in our cabin, where we assign unique codes to guests that stay. It has been great to be able to receive alerts to our phones when they arrive, and unlock the door when they forget the passwords and don’t have cell reception to look up emails when they first arrive.
This lock also comes in various flavors, obviously in terms of physical finish and style, but also in terms of technology buried inside. The secret to getting all of this to work is the Internet bridge, by using a low-energy wireless protocol to send lock commands to an Internet bridge unit, that then can communicate to a smart phone for control and programming. The bridge is offered in various flavors such as Zigbee and Z-wave, and both work well, but technofiles can argue their strengths and weaknesses, but we won’t delve into that in this post.
The Yale Smart Lock Installation
Once you install the lock, you’ll perform the initial setup by connecting via Bluetooth, then you’ll plugin the bridge to a power outlet near the lock, then through the app send the local Wifi credentials from the app to the bridge. Once this is complete, your lock will communicate to your phone’s app through the Internet via multiple networks. The Yale offers a Bluetooth backup, so if your Internet is offline, you can still control the lock from your phone, but only if it’s within Bluetooth range. This has happened a couple times and the lock codes remained intact, but I couldn’t add new codes nor receive any notifications that someone entered using the lock.
Additional Notes on the Yale Smart Lock
Because the Internet bridge is made by August, the Yale smartfone app didn’t quite perform the setup properly, so after getting on the phone with their support center, was directed to installing and completing the setup using the August smart phone app. I can now use both apps interchangeably without any issue.
Hope this helps and best of luck!