Lockitron Still Not Shipping?

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Brian Rhodes
Jun 24, 2014
IPVMU Certified

It takes more than hype and a good idea to make a good product. At least that's what Lockitron - the "revolutionary" door lock - has discovered.

Eighteen months after order, and after multiple delays, Lockitron is still not shipping in quantity.

There have been a few hundred units shipped, but almost all of those have been fraught with problems ranging from jamming, network unreliability, or short battery life. The company's blog details several painful iterations where product shipped to several end users, was installed, then was recalled and had to be factory reworked. See the factory image detailing this rework below:

We ordered our test unit in 10/2012 (during the initial crowdfunding campaign), paid for it a year later in 10/2013, and have not seen it yet despite an estimated ship date two months ago:

Lockitron is pressing ahead, and claims it almost has all the bugs worked out. However, the klutziness so far shows that $2.3 Million and a hyper-enthusiastic crowd of early backers does not guarantee success.

IG
Ilan Gershon
Jun 24, 2014
IPVMU Certified

I cancelled my order around 3 months ago. It's a shame because I looked at all the other options incl. Kevo, August etc. and this had everything I wanted (bluetooth, Wi-Fi etc.) aside from the bulky housing.

JH
John Honovich
Jun 24, 2014
IPVM

What I find amazing is that Lockitron remains the darling of Silicon Valley, despite this...

#bubble

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Ethan Ace
Jun 24, 2014

They actually seem like a good next pick up for Google/Nest, if they're into building out their security portfolio. They've got that right flavor of hipster security/automation that would slot into the ecosystem.

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Harrison Mitchell
Jun 24, 2014

I was an original backer, but I got my money refunded about 6 months ago. After all the flubs, it just didn't seem worth it to me, plus I don't trust that thing to lock my door. It seems they failed at converting prototype electronics to mass manufactured ones, not to mention, half the features they sold backers on hadn't been developed yet. They didn't start developing the Bluetooth sensing feature until 6 months after the original ship date. The WiFi disaster was the nail in the coffin for me. To me, it would have made more sense to have a base unit that's always connected to WiFi and wakes Lockitron up when it receives a request, not just have the device "learn" when I'm most likely to use it and turn the WiFi on at random times.

I still watch the forums to see what everyone else's experience is, hopefully they can work out all the bugs.

JH
John Honovich
Jul 14, 2014
IPVM
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