Subscriber Discussion

Has Anyone Looked Into The August Lock?

JS
Joe Summanen
Feb 20, 2015

With all of the recent smart lock reviews, I was curious how this one stacked up the rest.

August Home | Your Smart Home Starts at the Front Door

Intriguing.

Joe

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Jon Dillabaugh
Feb 20, 2015
Pro Focus LLC

Selling in an Apple Store should help sales. Looks nice, but there are no tech details anywhere.

(1)
U
Undisclosed #1
Feb 20, 2015
IPVMU Certified

What are you looking for exactly? There are a few technical documents here, including an FAQ, install guides, deadbolt parts, etc.

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Mark McRae
Feb 20, 2015
Inaxsys Security Systems

Very slick looking.

looks like a "nest" lock!

KL
Keefe Lovgren
Feb 20, 2015
IPVMU Certified

Would like to see the specs, especially in regards to battery life... deadbolts love batteries, especially if the latchbolt rubs on the jamb...

U
Undisclosed #1
Feb 21, 2015
IPVMU Certified

When August is installed correctly, and your deadbolt is not "sticky", the battery life should be around nine (9) months to one (1) year. You will receive notifications on your App indicating when your batteries are low.

This spec on the other hand pretty much rules it out for me though:

August is designed to use Bluetooth Low Energy to communicate with your phone. Your phone will the communicate with the server using the cellular or data connection on the device. Your authorized smart phone will need to have internet connection - either wireless or cellular data - to operate the lock.

Avatar
Jon Dillabaugh
Feb 21, 2015
Pro Focus LLC

Who has a smart phone without a data plan?

U
Undisclosed #1
Feb 21, 2015
IPVMU Certified

Who wants a lock that is dependent on a internet connection?

(2)
Avatar
Jon Dillabaugh
Feb 21, 2015
Pro Focus LLC

Me.

U
Undisclosed #1
Feb 21, 2015
IPVMU Certified

Sure makes it easy to remember even the shortest outages, I'll say that much...

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Jon Dillabaugh
Feb 21, 2015
Pro Focus LLC

You can still use your key. It isn't any harder to get into during an outage than it is to get in without it. You must be a competitor or something to hate a product this much.

(1)
U
Undisclosed #1
Feb 21, 2015
IPVMU Certified

Jon, seriously, I don't hate it, nor am I a competitor. All I said was I wouldn't use it, because it requires that the phone connects via the Internet to some central server before being able to tell the lock to open.

I don't like that because the device will fail when

  1. The Internet goes down
  2. The August cloud server goes down
  3. The August company goes under

i also don't like waiting seconds for my door to open, and several of the hands on reviews, ny times, wired, say the auto-open function is not reliable. And one of the main selling points would be NOT having to carry a key.

Also, the fact that the phone clearly is capable of telling the deadbolt to open but goes to the cloud first is not justifiable in my mind. And as I said earlier, this could certainly mean a push for RMR down the line...

I feel these are sufficient reasons to not want to buy one, but I don't mind if you buy one.

(2)
KL
Keefe Lovgren
Feb 21, 2015
IPVMU Certified

Undisclosed A,

Thank you. I have learned with battery operated locksets they last about 1/2 to 2/3 of the actual spec, this depends on usage of course...

as for needing internet on your mobile device I am not certain why that would be necessary if I have the locked paired to my phone via bluetooth...

Avatar
Jon Dillabaugh
Feb 21, 2015
Pro Focus LLC

The lock doesn't have an Internet connection. It uses your phones Internet as a proxy for authentication.

KL
Keefe Lovgren
Feb 21, 2015
IPVMU Certified

Jon,

I realize that the lock doesn't have an internet connection, I just didn't know why it would be necessary that my phone has it... thank you for clearing that up.

U
Undisclosed #1
Feb 21, 2015
IPVMU Certified

I'm not certain why it requires it, I'm just certain I wouldn't want it. Maybe RMR down the line?

Nor do i want the lag (> 3 secs), that it must entail. But clearly they could do it directly and if they did, I would buy it.

Avatar
Jon Dillabaugh
Feb 21, 2015
Pro Focus LLC

The cloud hosted website is a free service. There is no RMR.

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