August - Smart Lock Wi-Fi Replacement Deadbolt with App Access - Matte Black

--- SETUP --- The setup for August Smart Wi-Fi lock requires that you know how to install door knobs. This was my second door knob installation and I didn’t struggle at all. Very short videos play on a loop until you are ready for the next step and I was able to install everything in less than 30 minutes. --- FEATURES --- The key feature of this August Smart Wi-Fi lock is that it can open your door automatically as you approach your home, lock your door automatically after a timer ranging from 30 seconds up to 30 minutes. It can connect with your existing smart home devices including Google Home, Alexa, and Siri. Best of all, it works with your existing door bolt. --- PERFORMANCE --- The performance of the lock itself is great! I enjoyed the calibration process because it gives me a piece of mind that I had control over the level of detection alerts I got on the app (for example, if the door is slightly ajar). It was easy to add a second owner and my wife, who prefers to interact with tech as little as possible, found it very user-friendly and loved that she didn’t even have to take out the phone upon her return home. In my home, I have Alexa and Siri as my home assistants. I had a harder time connecting the August to Alexa, but it worked seamlessly and automatically with Siri. While I was away from home, my Shipt shopper arrived with groceries. I told her the door was about to unlock and asked her to put my groceries inside and to just close the door behind her. She did so and I was able to see my groceries with my home camera system and lock the door with August. --- EXPECTATIONS --- The product exceeds my expectations. Before this August system, I had a keyless entry lock that required you to press a keypad and turn the lock manually. I actually left the facade of that installed but now August is taking care of locking and unlocking the door. It is easier to change the batteries on this August lock than my previous keyless entry and I can still use my existing key if it runs out of battery. The only issue I had was a small hiccup where I couldn’t change any settings on the lock because the lock wasn’t connecting to my home WiFi. I had to close the app and reopen it and it worked after that. --- VALUE --- The price for the smart lock in terms of value is a worthy investment giving you peace of mind with notifications that your door may have been left ajar or an entry had been detected. I like to think of prices relative to how often a device will get used and this lock will get used more than once daily for sure. --- APPROVAL --- I highly recommend this product for people who want to complete their smart home setup or want to venture into starting one. It’s a great place to begin and doesn’t require a lot of handyman skill to get it installed.

Remotely lock or unlock the door, check door status, grant virtual guest keys, and see who is coming and going. Or use your favorite voice assistant to control your door. The August Wi-Fi Smart Lock is easy to install. It is designed to attach right to the existing lock on the inside of your door with minimal assembly - so you can continue to use your existing keys. The August Wi-Fi Smart Lock installation takes less than 10 minutes. Simply install on the inside of your door over your existing deadbolt. Leave your outside lock alone and keep your existing deadbolt and keys. Just make sure before you remove the inside part of your deadbolt that you have taped the front part to the door so the entire lock doesn’t fall out. Since the August Wi-Fi Smart Lock has a built in Wi-fi, you don’t need a “bridge” to connect it. The Bridge is only needed for some other Smart devices. (mentioned below) The August Smart Lock as Auto-Lock. The Auto-Lock automatically secures your front door once it is closed or after a specified amount of time, for up to 30 minutes. Enjoy peace-of-mind never worrying if your door is locked. I have it turned off so I don’t accidentally lock myself out without my smartphone. The August Smart Lock has what’s called “geo-fencing” (sensing) and automatically unlocks the front door when it detects you’re home. With this, you won’t have to pull out your phone or fumble around for your keys when you are carrying packages. The August Wi-Fi Smart lock uses 2 cr123 batteries (included) which lasts for a long time. The August App lets you know if the batteries are low and they need to be replaced. The Smart lock will still work manually if the batteries do run out. You can control and manage your door with the August app on any iOS or Android smartphone - or use your Apple watch (unfortunately it’s not compatible with other brands of Smart Watches) to come and go. Setup takes minutes and managing the Smart Lock setting is simple with the August app. The app logs activity (who comes, goes and when the lock is locked or unlocked). August doesn’t, however, have an app that works with Windows. With the August app, you can remotely let anyone in that arrives or secure your door if you forget to lock it when leaving. You can also manually turn the lock from the inside or use a standard key on the outside. The August Smart Lock has the ability to send “guest keys”. These are secure keys for friends, family, or people you trust instantly, all from the August app. Never hide keys again under the mat or in a Key Rock or worry who has a copy. August Wi-Fi Smart Lock has partnered with leaders in the smart home space so everything works together. The Smart Lock fits into your existing smart home and works together across other devices. You can pair the August Wi-Fi Smart Lock with Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri and more, to enable voice to lock, unlock and check the status of your door. Note: For Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa, you will need to connect the August Wi-Fi Bridge accessory for August Smart Lock Voice commands. This is the first Smart Lock I’ve owned and I’m really enjoying it. Especially when I come home from shopping and I don’t have to hunt in my purse or pockets for my house keys.

The August WiFi Smart Lock is simple to install and works for the most part. I’ve had really spotty issues with some of it’s smart features since I have had it though. These may be things that can get ironed out over time through software patches or they just randomly start working like they have for me. To install the lock you must download the app to a smart device and there you get step by step directions, with pictures. It really is as simple as removing two screws, putting the right adapter on the lock, putting the screws back in and attaching the lock. To use the door sense feature you have a hidden option, which requires some wood work, or the external sensor, which is like that of post install security systems. Then continuing the directions you add the lock through BlueTooth to your device and can connect it to 2.4 Ghz WiFi from there. Upon initial setup, everything seemed to work. I received notifications and using the app I could lock/unlock the door and see if it is opened or closed. Additional features in the app allow for setup of auto lock and unlock and various notifications like if the door is opened manually, left ajar, unlocked by a specific user or auto-locked. Also, some features may not be visible unless you are connected to the device via BlueTooth at that time, like calibrate and factory reset. The auto lock feature works every time the door is shut, if it is not shut completely it will still attempt to lock, but give an audible alert if it fails. The auto unlock feature is supposed to react by geofencing after returning from greater than 200ft from the location that you set. However, it has only worked after I manually unlocked, walked inside, then auto-locked the door, for it to then unlock itself and properly once when I returned from a long overnight trip. When using the app, I have had it not respond on WiFi and only unlock if close enough to get a BlueTooth signal. This is with the WiFi router in the same room as the lock. Notifications have been hit or miss. Might get them within seconds of the door being unlocked, or never. On my overnight trip, my door was manually unlocked twice and never received any notifications. Then, when checking the log it took several hours before it showed up, the screenshot attached. So, wouldn’t rely on this as a security notification device. This also works with voice devices, like Alexa and Google. However, with my Google Home it did not work completely at first. It would lock and give status, but for unlock it asks for a PIN. The PIN is set through the app, but spoken out loud for the speaker. For example I would set 1234 and when asked to unlock, Google would ask for the PIN, but then return an answer like “123 4th street is 2.3 miles from your current location.” After a day or so, I tried again and it works as intended. Albeit a bit slow at times, it has worked now, hands free. So, in the end, this isn’t a bad device. Maybe someone with an iPhone will have better success than myself with a Samsung Note 10+. I just don’t like how spotty its smart features have been and due to that the added delay of getting into my house.

The August Wi-Fi Smart Lock is our first experience with a smart lock of any kind. This is a great option for those homeowners that want to stay with their existing door hardware. Installation should be fairly easy for most homeowners. I’d think the biggest obstacle would be if your door doesn’t close well since the lock will need to calibrate itself later in the installation process. Otherwise, August has easy to follow online tutorials that go through a step by step series of instructions on how to install the lock. There is a plate in the mounting hardware that one can use if the deadbolt hole is larger and needs a bit more cover which ours did. Aesthetically, the lock is quite nice looking. It is not much bigger than what the previous deadbolt hardware was and blends nicely with our other hardware of the same finish. This new model is smaller than previous August models and does not require the August Connect since the lock now has built in Wi-Fi. One can easily operate the lock in a manual fashion by just turning the lock left or right to unlock or lock. The lock utilizes two CR13 batteries so it will be interesting to see how long the CR123 batteries last in our lock. We have used the lock for over a week now and our experience has been quite good. The app has many options for customization for features such as auto-lock and auto-unlock and door ajar timing. A user can choose to use these features and can set the timing related to each of these functions. We are using the auto-lock feature, but chose at this time to not continue using the auto-unlock feature since not all users in our home come in through the same door and one must allow location access to the August app for this to work. It would be nice if the app allowed different settings for auto-unlock based on each user. We have found the auto-lock feature to work well. We had one time that the app could not connect with the lock and had us run through a series of troubleshooting steps such as checking that the batteries were not bad. We simply waited a bit and the problem resolved itself and has not recurred since. It is nice that the lock can be operated anytime with a key should one need to do so. August is capable of smart home integration with Google, Apple and Amazon and has voice control for ease of use. Lock security is quite good with two-factor authentication to log into one’s account or to create a new one. August uses bank grade security for the user’s data with Bluetooth encryption, AES 128 bit and TLS encryption for the mobile app. There is also a desktop site to disable the app and all virtual keys should your phone be lost or stolen. The August lock does come with a bit of a price tag, but it also avoids one having to incur additional hardware purchases since it can be used with existing door hardware and requires no additional Wi-Fi accessory to connect. The virtual key features for guests, auto-lock and auto-unlock features and bank secure levels of security make this lock an easy recommendation to buy. It is nice to go for walks or other outdoor activities and not have to carry one’s keys anymore.

I love technology and I was looking for something to get rid of my house key. I am renting, so I didn’t want to modify the front door at all, after reading and doing some research I went for this one. It works like a charm (Both, the deadbolt and door sensor). By the way, for those that don’t have the door frame and door at the same level (like Myself) and are concerned if the door sense can be installed/functional..... it is not a problem at all. Here is are pictures of what I did and it’s working perfectly. I love not having keys on me at all (I purchased a Tesla too ;)

Very easy to install. Only need a screw driver to undo 2 screws and this smart lock sides onto the inside half of your existing door knob. You can still access the door by using your standard existing key. Setup was simple. Download the app and select your 4th Gen smart lock. You will be guided step by step through the setup process. Surprisingly I think the manufacture did an extensive job to make sure this process goes smooth and with little fuss. Everything I did worked the first time and never gave me any issues. (Like pairing with the WiFi or the app being able to find the smart lock via Bluetooth) everything went well in the installation. Iv been using the lock for a full day and a half now on my front door that usually has slot of traffic each day going in and out. So far I'm really pleased with this smart lock! I would highly recommend it!

The actual installation of the lock was very simple, there is only so much you can mess up. It's after you activate it when it becomes a nightmare to work with. First off, the android app is sluggish and unresponsive, you can click a button several times and nothing happens. Not sure what to really do there. When I actually did click my way through it said that the device needed an update, no problem even the Hue lightbulbs needed a firmware update first time around. Except that it would get to 2 percent, then stop for about a minute before moving onto the doorsense screen. Since you can't communicate with the lock yet, you need to exit out of that setup screen. Which then takes you to the home screen where it both says that the device needs to be calibrated and that the update failed. Constantly. I tried different combinations of restating phone/lock, toggling wifi/bluetooth, only having 2.4ghz active at home. NOTHING. Each time it would start the update and then fail at 2% giving you no feedback to work with. Luckily I had an iPad laying around, and trying to install that from there worked as intended. The app itself was much more responsive, the update only took about a minute or two. Doorsense was easy to set up and the lock talked perfectly to the iPad. In the end doing this allowed my phone, Note 9, to finally connect to the lock and also control it. How well it will work is to be seen over time. I will say this, if you have an android phone only at home, DO NOT BUY. August has decided we do not get to use this lock. If you have an iPhone, you are probably fine from the get go. And hopefully by using the iPad the issues are behind me now. But so far this is the least impressive piece of smart home tech I have used. Everything from Wyze to Nest to Hue has been exactly as intuitive as necessary, this is not it.

Sleek design, super easy to install, and no bridge required to add some really cool features to something as simple as a door deadbolt. You can set this to lock automatically after you leave, and then auto unlock upon approach using your smartphone or apple watch thru geo-fencing. While you can totally still use your hardware keys which is good peace of mind, you can also issue virtual guest keys with the app for your neighbors, guests, service crew, etc The August app is simple to use and shows a nice log of which family members, or physical access occurred. You can create alerts based on activity that you would like to monitor if you choose. Pairing w/ Amazon Echo/Alexa was simple. Make sure to enable the skill in the Alexa app. Also, by tapping in to your door frame w/ a drill bit, you can activate DoorSense - which after simple installation/calibration allows you to determine whether your door is closed and locked. Total time from unboxing to install was 7 minutes. The August icon on the lock itself is actually an indicator and will flash red for locked and green for open, as well as making a pleasant chime. Great device, can't wait to grab a few more!