Smart Locks can be one of the scarier things to add to your smart home setup because you’re
changing the way people can access your home and linking your lock to the internet in some cases,
which can rightly make you feel a bit uncomfortable. August is one of the most
well known brands in this space and after putting off getting a smart lock for years,
I finally decided to get an August Wifi smart lock
and I'm going to take you through what it's been like to use over the past six months.
So first, let's talk about which specific model of the August lock
that I got and why I chose it over the competition. The first thing that made
getting this lock advantageous is that it works with an existing deadbolt,
which is really important for renters like me who don't have the ability to change out locks
on our home or for people who need existing keys to work with their new Smart Lock.
And this has been one of the best parts of using this lock over the past 6 months,
maintenance people can still access my apartment so I’m not breaking my lease,
but I can now unlock my door with a smartphone or my Apple Watch.
The second thing that made me go for this Smart Lock is the Wi-Fi module
is completely integrated into it, unlike previous generations of the August lock
that required a separate Wi-Fi bridge that you had to buy and plug into an outlet.
Now, when I originally bought this lock, I thought this was going to be a major benefit,
but it actually brings me to one of the first downsides I've encountered with this lock compared
to the previous generation and that is battery life. August estimates the fourth generation
Wi-Fi lock I have should last anywhere from three to six months of use. However, in my experience,
it's been more like six to eight weeks of battery life. And when you compare the estimated battery
life of the 4th gen lock with the previous generation which August estimates will 6 months
to a year of battery life, the third generation lock’s battery life seems like a much better deal.
So the battery life has been a bit of a downside with this Smart Lock in my experience,
and another related downside are the batteries it takes. The 4th gen takes the CR123 sized
battery which are easy enough to order from major retailers here in the US like Amazon,
and I’ve linked them in the description below, but they’re far less common and thus
more pricey than the AA batteries the previous generation of the August smart lock required.
Now one reason the battery life isn’t as long on the 4th gen is there’s less room for a larger
battery compartment since August significantly slimmed down the size of the newest generation,
giving it a much sleeker look in my opinion.
Next up, let's talk about automation and connectivity. One of the benefits of going with
a Smart Lock nowadays are the smart home platform integrations you get
as well as smart features and the August lock has
a ton of smart features that I've come to enjoy and rely on over the past six months.
The first one of those is auto lock. This allows you to set if you want the door to automatically
lock as soon as it’s closed and it’ll also auto lock if the door was unlocked but never opened
after a set time. This is honestly one of my favorite features of the August lock.
It used to drive me crazy when we would invite people over and they'd open the door and then
shut it behind them, forgetting to lock the door. And yes, I've been guilty of forgetting
to lock our door as well, especially when I'm like carrying boxes in or something like that.
With this feature, I never have to worry about if our door has been left unlocked.
And since the August lock can connect to smart home platforms like Apple’s HomeKit, Google
Home and Amazon’s smart home platform, I get notifications each time the lock unlocks or locks
again. Within the August app you can also enable notifications called smart alerts that will send
you a notification for specific events like if the door is left ajar for a certain amount of time,
or the door is unlocked by a specific user or has been auto-locked etc. Overall, I'd say I'd
know more now about the status of my door and the lock itself with the August lock than without it.
And by now, I know you're probably like
wait a minute. How does the lock know when the door is open or not? The August lock comes with
a door sensor that is technically optional to install, but you really should install it.
Now the last auto feature this lock has is called auto unlock which is a pretty cool feature,
though one that hasn’t been as useful for me as I would have originally thought. What this feature
does is put a geofence around your home and then when the app recognizes you’ve left your home and
have come back, it’ll combine that data and wait for your phone’s bluetooth signal to
come within range of your smart lock and then your lock will automatically unlock.
However with homes like mine where you walk up some stairs, I’ve found that
by time I get up the stairs, the lock has either relocked already with this feature,
or it hasn’t actually unlocked and takes too long, resulting in my just using a regular key.
And this leads me to another downside I've found with the August Smart Lock, and that is the future
of never needing to carry your keys in your pocket again, it's just not there for me. Over
the past six months of testing the lock, I ended up carrying my physical keys in my pocket again
simply for the fact that it's often easier, but more importantly, a lot of times faster to just
dig the keys out of my pocket and unlock the door and get inside versus having to dig my phone out,
authenticate into my phone, and then open the August app to unlock the door and trying to use
Siri or the Google Assistant just takes too long or will just fail completely.
Speed is another downside why trying to use my Apple Watch to unlock my door.
August has an Apple watch app, but its been slow and unreliable for me over the past 6 months.
Using Apple's HomeKit for me has actually been the fastest out of all the smart home platforms.
That's likely due to Apple using a local Homekit hub that makes a direct connection to the lock
itself, but I also ran into issues with HomeKit with my lock going offline in the
Home app causing me to have to delete and re-add the lock to get it working again.
Now the month, since iOS 15 came out, I've actually had way less problems between Homekit
and my August and the home app on the Apple Watch now controls the door at a speed I'd consider to
be acceptable and is about as fast as using a regular key, Though. I still have to roll my
wrist for my watch to face me and then either, I need to go into the home app or I hit the
side button and go into one of my shortcuts there, to the home app, to unlock the lock.
Now, sometimes, it's just gonna be faster to have a key in hand to unlock your door.
And the thing that I really wish that August would figure out how to implement with their
locks is NFC, which stands for near field communication, and its the technology that
allows for things like Apple and Google Pay or unlocking a hotel room with your phone.
By working with the big companies like Apple and Google and then implementing
NFC in their smart lock, August could figure out a way to literally allow you to tap your
phone or your smartwatch against the lock that would cause it to immediately unlock.
And then, I think you could actually make the claim
that your smartphone or your smartwatch is literally a key to get in. Right now the only
additional unlocking accessory August sells is a wireless keypad you can install for your lock,
though you can potentially try and use NFC tags and Siri shortcuts with an iPhone, but there’s no
first-party seamless NFC accessory from August. So those are the main software features that
have made a big impact on me over the past six months of using the August lock. Now, of course,
that's not everything the August lock can do. With the August app you can control multiple
locks and homes, invite different household members to be able to control your lock,
invite a guest and give them temporary access to your home, and see an activity timeline of
everything that’s been going on with your lock. You can also add additional security to unlocking
your door by requiring biometric authentication, so with an iPhone you’ll have to use FaceID in
order to unlock the door or a fingerprint sensor or passcode with an Android device.
Now, in order to do any of the things that I've talked about, so far in this video, you actually
need to be able to successfully install the August lock. And thankfully, that process
was very straightforward. August gives you very helpful videos for each step of the installation
process and overall I thought the process was well thought out, like for example the small pieces
needed for installation had arrows to help you figure out which way a piece is supposed to face.
The only issue I ran into when I first installed my August lock was the lock
wasn’t turning correctly so I had to take it off and reinstall it and that seemed to fix my
initial issue. Other than that, I haven't run into any issues with its locking mechanism.
And overall, I've been very impressed at how solidly built this lock is. Right next up,
let's talk recommendations. Overall, do I recommend the August Wi-Fi Smart lock? Yes, but
with some caveats. If you need a lock that works with an existing deadbolt and connects to Wi-Fi
but want better battery life performance compared to the 4th generation, I’d recommend the previous
generation lock which, at the time of this recording, is still being sold. The lock will be
a bit more bulky, but the batteries that come with it will be easier to replace and find replacements
for and you'll enjoy all of the same features that you get on the fourth generation that I have,
so long as you have the August Wi-Fi bridge. Now if you don’t necessarily need a smart
lock to work with an existing deadbolt, you have a lot of options out there,
August makes another version of their smart lock that you might want to consider or there are other
locks from Yale and other brands that might work better for you based on the features they offer.
To me, this lock would have been perfect if it had better battery life, a more common type of
battery, and if August figured out a way to implement NFC in a seamless way to use
your smartphone or smartwatch to unlock your door. Until I get a lock with that feature,
the dream of never carrying my keys around with me still isn’t a reality.
The August Wifi lock 4th generation retails for $229.99 here in the US
and comes in both silver and matte black which is the color I have.
Check out the purchase links on the side of this video or in the description below to learn more.
If you have any further questions about the August Wi-Fi Smart Lock, leave them in a comment below.
And if you like this video, make sure you hit that thumbs up button and subscribe to the channel to
see more reviews like this one. And check out some of our other smart home reviews like ones we did
on the i7 Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner and the Philips Hue Smart Lighting System.
For 6 Months Later, I'm Josh Teder, thanks for watching.