investing in a smart lock is a great way to add security to your house
in addition to that you can also do some cool automations with your lock locking and unlocking
at certain times turning the lights on and off we are going to be taking a look at the
yale assure lock i'm going to be going over the features that it offers and what it
connects with we're also going to be talking about some automation ideas too so stay tuned
hey everybody welcome back to another video so i am taking a look at smart locks i am in the hunt
right now for the best smart lock out there and in today's video we're taking a look at
the yale ashore touch screen lock now this one that i picked up has a key for it so this is going
to have the key you can pick up some that aren't going to have the key but what i liked about this
lock right here is that it connects with so many different things now i picked up the wi-fi version
and i highly recommend picking up the wi-fi version when it comes to a lock because it's going
to work with just so many different things if you pick up a z-wave or a zigbee it's going to work
with most things but not everything now before we get started don't forget to subscribe and hit
that notification bell so you don't miss out on future videos like this one with that said let's
get started so i wanted to talk about some of the features with this lock if we take a look at the
front of the box we see that it's wi-fi connected and bluetooth we've also got works with alexa
works with apple homekit and works with google assistant so it works with all three of the major
voice assistants out there if we take a look at the back of the box we see that it installs
within minutes you can control it from anywhere we can unlock using the keypad on the front of it
we can share access with others so that's a cool feature right there know who's coming and going
so when you set up these either keypad locks or access through the app it's going to let you know
who unlocked the door and at what time we've also got the option of seeing if your door is open or
closed it comes with two keys and an optional auto relock we also got four different colors down here
i picked up the satin nickel because that is going to match the best with my lock down stairs if i
show you guys what comes in the box here it comes with a quick start guide so we've got a quick
start guide letting you know how to set this up and essentially just tells you to download the app
set up the lock and then go ahead and get it installed now there was another option on here to
use i think it was a built so there is an app out there called built which will take you through the
instructions in kind of like a 3d rendering i will say i tried to use that and i didn't
find it that helpful if anything i was a little bit more confused using that than actually just
going through the manual itself so i just used the paper manual that came inside it was pretty easy
to set up and get everything up and running i just had to remove my old stuff and then just basically
sandwich these two together and screw them in you do get a template also in the box if you do
need to drill any new holes or line anything up it does give you some templates in here in addition
to those we've also got a little box for all of our hardware components and then we've got our
yale access so this is a little module that's going to go inside of your lock the cool thing and
the reason that i went with yale is because you can adjust kind of on the fly with these modules
what kind of lock you have so i picked up the one for wi-fi and this is going to plug into the lock
if i want i can pull it out and i can put in a zigbee one or i could put in a z-wave one
and it's going to use that protocol to connect to different things so later down the road if
i decide you know i don't like wi-fi anymore i want to switch over to a zigbee or a z-wave
to maybe connect with my smartthings hub or my amazon echo hub i can get different modules to
make that change i don't have to buy an entire new lock so that is what i like the most about
these yale locks but now let's take a look at the hardware components that come with this thing all
right so here is the hardware that comes in the box we actually have a yale bolt right here so
you are going to need to use this because of the connector right here this is going to be the pad
that is going to be inside the door so you're going to put that inside the door so you can
get this all set up right there we've got the interior of the door so this is what the bolt
is going to look like on the inside and be able to lock and unlock it opening this up we're going to
see our battery components and then here is the wi-fi adapter right here so you can replace this
zigbee z-wave anyone you want to i got the wi-fi one just gonna pop it right in there and that is
going to opposite and that is going to make this a wi-fi one so that's the interior side and then
we've also got the external so this is going to be our keyhole right here now this does come
with two keys in the box this is our touch screen right here and the components that slide through
so essentially we're just going to sandwich these two together in the hole that's already in my door
we're gonna screw in a couple of bolts right here and it's pretty easy to get this thing installed
i do also want to mention that there is a wi-fi adapter right here so you do have to plug this
in to get this connected to wi-fi and be able to control it through your phone so this is the wi-fi
adapter that does need to be plugged in for the yale assure locks installing the lock is really
easy so first i put in that deadbolt i'm going to screw it on the top and the bottom to secure
it into place i put on the front keypad first the one that is going to face out to everyone who's
walking up i slide that in make sure it's good we're gonna slide on the back plate i'm gonna
keep the rubber side against the door to protect it once i get that all done i'm gonna take the
two long screws to go ahead and sandwich those together to keep it tight inside the door make
sure that the lock is straight up and down before you tighten that too tight once you get that done
you're gonna slip on the inside cover of the lock screw that in put in the batteries get your
wi-fi module set up and installed and that's pretty much it the install is pretty easy to do
but now that i have it all set up in the app let's go ahead and take a look and
see what the features are alright so we can see here in the app there is the name of my house
right there i'm gonna go ahead and tap on that and that is going to bring up the lock so it takes a
second for it to make its connection unless you know what's going on downstairs right now looks
like it is unlocked because it is showing green if i tap and hold on there it is now say locking
so it's going and it's locking the door that is downstairs now it does have two connection types
we've got the bluetooth and we have wi-fi but lock is in use right now hmm wonder what that means
okay now it's discovered i wonder if i'm in that weird zone if it's jumping between wi-fi
and bluetooth because i noticed up where it says front door lock just to the right of that
did have a bluetooth symbol and now it has a wi-fi signal so i must be just in that special spot
right there which is why oh see now it just jumped over to the bluetooth signal up there so this
might be a little bit weird example everything has been working fine i promise if we take a look at
the bottom tabs right here we can take a look at activity of everything that's been going on
we see everything that i've been doing using my code to lock and unlock the doors now if
you do sign up people with other codes it's going to give their names so you can monitor
who's doing what to their door what's how they're unlocking it what time they're arriving different
things like that if they're using a pin code or if they're using an access code if we take a look at
the next tab right here this is going to show our guest list so i only have myself set up right now
we've also got the yale users so that's going to be kind of like the admin user that you initially
set up on the device right here and then you can also invite people so if i click on that
for invited people you have two ways to invite people you can either give them app access and
what that means is that you will then either use a mobile number or uh the contact on your phone
to send them a link to an invite that link is going to have them install this app and set up the
app with their own user account they can then when they get to your house open up the app bring the
app to your door and they can unlock the door from there or you can give them an actual number so if
i click on invite again personal entry code only so that's going to be one of those numbers they're
going to type in at the front door so they can do that at the front door so there's two types that
you can set up with your guest list you can then set up a picture like i've done for myself right
here that i put a picture there so you can kind of make it a little bit more personal but that is
what you can do when setting up users now the cool thing about setting up users too is that you can
set up a different schedules at different times you know say that you've got a cleaning lady a dog
walker somebody who comes and takes care of your yard when you're on vacation something like that
you can set it up to where they only have access during certain times of day so that's nice they
don't have to worry about it outside of that now if you take a look at the settings here we've got
lock settings and we've got the connect settings so the connect is that wi-fi thing
that's downstairs that's how your lock is going to connect to wi-fi and then we've also got our
lock settings here so here are our lock settings we can rename the lock if we want to do that we
can set up hiding entry codes verifying access we've got different automations that we can set up
right here auto lock and unlocking and that means that as you're approaching your door you can have
it to automatically unlock for certain users or if you leave the house it can automatically lock your
door you can get different things for door sense and if your door is left open say on a timer got
device settings keypad settings all of that good stuff it's going to be in the settings right here
now a cool thing that i did with this lock right here is i connected it to my apple home kit
and i did that so that way i can set up an automation so i'm gonna go into apple homekit
right here i'm gonna go to automations at the bottom and this middle one right here i'm gonna
go ahead and tap on that and what i've done with this automation right here is that i said anytime
my yale lock is unlocked and if we see right below that it says only at night time so anytime it's
unlocked only at night it's going to go ahead and it's going to turn on the front porch lights now
i have this setup to connect through the switch at my front door so instead of using smart lights i'm
actually using a smart switch but this is going to turn on the smart lights so at night time somebody
wants to go outside the porch lights might not be on as soon as they unlock that door the porch
lights are automatically going to turn on and we can see at the very bottom turn off after 10
minutes so after 10 minutes it'll go ahead and turn those lights off so that's the automation
that i have set up right here using that lock but you can use this for other things you can
have it to at a certain time of day if the door is unlocked say around the time that you get home
you can have it turn on your thermostat or do other things there's so many things that you
can do with a lock and unlock being a trigger to either trigger things on and start running
or to trigger things off if you don't want them to run anymore so lots of options that is why i
like the wi-fi version because it can connect to so many different things as we saw earlier we've
got amazon alexa we've got the home kit and we've got google assistant so a lot of things that you
can integrate this lock with so i've been using this lock for about a week now and i gotta say for
the most part i like it i like the automation i like a lot of things you can do with it one thing
that i don't like is that when you are trying to unlock it using the pin code on front is that to
bring up the pin code to illuminate for you to use it you have to either tap it with three fingers
or you have to tap on the yale logo on the top now i found that typically i like to just tap with
the yale logo on top but it doesn't always work sometimes it takes two or three times of pushing
and holding on that to get my keypad to come up now i could do the three fingers or try to you
know put my hand on it but for some reason i just don't like putting my entire hand on a touchpad it
leaves fingerprints and just looks weird to me i'm not a big fan of that but i would say pretty much
that's my only complaint with it it's a little bit hard to get that to come up when i'm trying
to use it but other than that i've really enjoyed it i like that i can set it up with automations i
can run a good night routine that's automatically gonna lock my door or if i leave my house i can
have my door automatically locked those are all nice good things that make me feel secure knowing
my front door is locked or being able to check it whenever i want to also if anyone comes and
uses a code i'm going to get notified i can get notified any time my door is locked or unlocked
so that's a cool thing right there but with that said is this the best lock out there well that is
something that we are going to find out the next lock that i'm going to be taking a look at is the
august wi-fi smart log i'm going to be doing that in another video but the hunt continues for the
best lock this one's a good run right here and if this is something you are interested in i would
definitely recommend it i will leave links below for you guys to check this lock out anyway if you
guys have any questions about this lock leave them in the comments below i'd love to answer
them for you if this video was helpful give it a thumbs up let me know that you liked it as always
don't forget to subscribe for more content like this i'll see you guys in the next video
you