Kwikset - Kevo Touch-to-Open Bluetooth Key and Electronic Smart Door Lock (2nd Gen) - Polished brass

#1 BATTERY USAGE: This lock goes through AA batteries way too fast. I use very good quality name brand batteries but this lock uses them up quickly because it is battery operated for everything it does. The lock mechanism for opening and closing uses battery power and it's on standby mode all day and night just waiting to detect someone touching the lock which and this uses up the battery. #2 BATTERY COMPARTMENT ACCESS: It wouldn't be that bad (just the cost of the batteries every so often) but Kwikset designed this lock in such a dumb way that to replace the batteries you can't just pop off the cover and switch them out. You have to go get a screw driver and unscrew these 3 teeny tiny itty bittty little screws on both sides and 1 on the bottom. The screw on the bottom is directly over the door handle so it's tough to get the screwdriver in it and you must angle the screwdriver. Over time unscrewing the bottom screw with the bit head angled the way it has to be will strip the screw head rounding it out to the point it won't even catch anymore. These screws are very small an easily lost so if you have carpet below your door be careful not to drop a screw and if you have wood floor, as I do, or tile be prepared for a hunt as well because they do bounce far. #3 FALSE TOUCH LOCKING: I've been inside feet away from the door with the door wide open and no one has been near the door in at least 5 minutes and all of a sudden it will activate and lock. I don't have it set to auto lock after 30 seconds or anything like that and there was no one around to brush by it let alone touch it. It happens fairly often but fortunately I've only noticed it locking but that may be just because if the door is open the lock is in the unlocked position so it only has the option of locking. #4 I'm not sure but I think the Kevo App is also using my phone battery because I've noticed my Galaxy S7 doesn't make it 3/4 of the day anymore and it started right when I got this lock. #5 Any time my phone dies and I have to charge it up and power it back on or if I reset my phone or turn it off then on I have to remember to go back into the Kevo app otherwise it won't work with the lock. The app must always be running for it to work with the lock. #6 I called customer service at 1343 hours and they said they are experiencing a high volume of calls (THERE MUST BE A LOT OF UNHAPPY KEVO CUSTOMERS!) and they gave me the option to leave a call back number and they would keep my place in line and call me back once my number came up... well I left my number and now it's 1433 hours and I still haven't heard from customer service so that's over a 50 minute wait which as far as customer service goes I would say that's pretty bad. Overall bad design flaws, bad power consumption, and bad customer service... all for the price of about $250+tax so $275?

Kwikset has done a nice job with the upgraded Kevo, but its just not fully baked. If you have your compatible IOS or Android device (I have an Iphone 7 with IOS 10.1 as of this writing) in your pocket or purse you should be able to have the app running in the background and tap the outer ring of the lock and the door should unlock. I have troubleshooted this with Kwikset multiple times and it just doesn't work consistently. The blue ring just spins and nothing. Kwikset claims to try again as the lock is "calibrating". Multiple times and ...nothing. This is not a dealbreaker, but it does require removing the phone from your pocket and opening the app and unlocking the door with the app. Hence, defeating the purpose and taking longer than it would to take a key out of my pocket and open the door. This is not to say that I would not recommend Kevo. I love that I can remotely (with the Kevo bridge, an additional upgrade) open the lock remotely for guests or vendors that I need to let into my home. Its also nice to be able to check to make sure you locked the door. Although I have on occasion checked the app and it says the door is locked when it isn't. This is a VERY serious issue and in Kevo's defense I have not contacted them. I assume that this might be an issue of the app not getting updated as I had just unlocked the door and gotten in the car and attempted to lock the door with the app, possibly not allowing enough time for the app to receive the updated information. All in all, it is a good product that has great potential but still needs some work. I'd still recommend it. But its important to have the right expectations.

I've tried them all, including the August, Friday, Kevo convert and Kevo first generation. The second generation Kevo so far is the only one that has worked 100% of the time for me! Some of the negative reviews for this lock may in fact be reviewing the first generation version Kevo lock mistakenly. The second generation lock was just released in Spring of 2017. Installation and configuration of the lock was a little challenging but I was able to handle the entire process myself. As soon as I installed the lock and downloaded the app to my phone, it wanted to do a software update that took approximately 20 to 30 minutes and required keeping my phone within ten feet or so of the lock. So I just laid my phone down inside the front door near the lock while it performed the update. It made a loud beep sound once the update was finished and the remaining setup was a snap. One comment, the first 2nd generation Kevo lock I purchased had a defective circuit board. I was unable to get it to reset to factory default by pressing the reset button. I was advised by Kevo technical support (waited on hold almost 30 minutes to talk to them) to try exchanging the item, which I did at Best Buy where I purchased this lock. The new one has been working perfectly ever since I installed it roughly 10 days ago! Bottom line, if you want a Smart Lock that actually works when you approach the door and tap it to unlock consistently, make sure you buy this second generation Kevo and save yourself a lot of headaches and time. This lock also has optional automatic relock which automatically locks the door 30 seconds after it was opened either manually by twisting the knob or using the electronic opening. In other words, with this feature turned on your door is pretty much locked all the time and you have to unlock the deadbolt to exit. This adds an extra layer of security knowing that my door is always locked.

I was super excited to get this lock on my home. I have a lot of friends that visit from out of town and having the ability for them to let themselves in if they want to stay out late was a dream. It still is a dream. Firstly the lock mechanism was too big to even fit in my door, so after somewhat successfully drilling out a ever so slightly larger hole (and scratching up the door finish in the process) I was able to get it to ‘fit’ in the hole. Then I had to fight with the deadbolt part to even hit the hole of the door jam, and guess what it still hasn’t ever worked. When the Kēvo tries to auto lock it just whirs and clicks until I get frustrated enough to manually lock it. Moving on from that I NEVER got the Kēvo and related phone app to ever talk to each other. I couldn’t even get it to work with three separate phones (all setup after clearing the lock memory and related app data). The lights around the exterior facing lock would never light up. Since this was the only deadbolt I have and now my old lock wouldn’t fit there was no way I was shipping the lock to the MFG for replacement, and since I live alone with a small kid I wasn’t leaving my home unlocked to return this to BBY. Basically I had the pleasure of wasting my money on a fancy standard deadbolt that I can’t replace without replacing my entire front door.

So far this product has been great! I read a lot of reviews online and was skeptical because many of the reviews were so-so or gave this product poor ratings. I decided to take a risk and give this a shot anyways. After about 2 weeks, I'm really liking this lock! Now, I'm not using it as an entry door lock so take that for what it's worth. I'm using this as a lock on my master bedroom door. As foster parents, we needed to limit access to our bedroom for safety and privacy reasons. Hoping that this would make it easier to go in and out frequently without using a key. The touch to open feature using Bluetooth works well, but sometimes does not connect right away and you have to touch it two or three times before it will open, making you stand there for 10-15 seconds. Installation was easy but took longer for me because I had to drill out for a new deadbolt. If you already have a deadbolt, this should take someone with no handy skills about 20-30 minutes to install. This mobile app is nice and shows if the door is locked or unlocked. You can lock or unlock from your phone when on wi-fi. You can also send ekeys to other people to allow access to the lock. The app also shows who locked/unlocked the door and when. I have other Kwikset locks on my house and the smart key feature allowed me to re-key this lock by myself to my current key in about 10 seconds. Awesome! This saved me from having to have a locksmith rekey the lock. Overall, I am satisfied with this product and would recommend it to others. I hope they come out with a combination door handle and deadbolt smart lock in the future. If you have an entry door with a separate deadbolt, that kind of defeats the purpose of this product because you still need a key to open the door handle lock. If they make a product that can do both, I'd buy it the day it comes out for my front door!

After reading reviews on the Kwikset Kevo lock I thought I'd give it a shot. The concept of having to just touch the lock for it to unlock was ideal for my kids who always have their cell phone but sometimes forget their keys was the big selling point. I have a Android (LG G6), and the rest of the family has Apple products. The installation was easy and painless, I already have a kwikset deadbolt so rekeying the lock was also a snap! Once the lock was set and the power was hooked up it was time to program the phone. The app was easy to find on both Apple and Android. Apple paired to the lock fast and the account was set. Android on the other hand did NOT support most of the features and it had difficulty pairing. No problem, I'll just get the remote fob for myself, besides the lock is for the ease of the wife and kids. Now it's time to pair the other Apple phones. BOOM! Done. Testing out the lock my son went from the front door around back and tryed the lock. The phone was in his hand and worked as it should. My youngest went to try his phone, following the same path with phone in hand....nothing. Tried again...nothing! My oldest repeated the same pattern and nope, ain't happening. Both phones lost connection and needed to be paired again. When trying to pair the app would not accept the already established log in and password. The account needed to be reset but would not take the original information. After 3 separate accounts and pairings it was time to call it quits! Back you go! Like I said the concept is great but the delivery is very poor.

The quality of this lock is top notch. It can only be used as an entry to the house (cannot be used with both sides of the lock outdoors). In order to use the remote lock/unlock feature you must buy the additional kevo gateway (this is a bluetooth lock and the hardware gateway adds wifi to the configuration) which costs an additional $99 at the time of this review. This is in alignment with other remote capability smart locks. It's a one-time cost and you can add multiple locks to 1 gateway. All that out of the way, this lock is excellent. I only give it 4* because of the need to buy the additional gateway to unlock all of the features. I will buy more of these locks. Standard install complexity with no surprises. On the internal component, a release screw is inserted at the factory to secure the window (batteries) and can be removed to make it tooless to replace the batteries later. The app runs in the background of you phone so there's a power cost to it but that's how these devices work. If this concerns you, you should not buy a smart lock. No fob but they can be purchased for around $20 (shouldnt need them but you could use one as a "loner" for temp access). The eKey is the more efficient way to issue temp keys. The drawback of this is whomever you issue a key to, they need to create a kevo account and install the app. This is little inconvenience for the assurance.

So, I was really excited to use this item. I also have a ring doorbell which I heard integrates with the Kevo, but I haven't installed the doorbell yet, so I can't comment on that yet. I can say that the touch functionality of it is frustrating... at least to me. It takes about 10 seconds for the lock to connect with your phone when just walking up and sometimes it doesn't connect at all during the first touch event. Most times it's faster just to use your key and god forbid you accidentally touch the lock when your trying to unlock it with the key. The one handy occasion the touch function is good for is when your hands are full and you can't get to your keys. Outside of that one benefit the lock is as good as any other kwikset dead bolt. I will say that it does have a slight cool factor when you're upstairs and you know who's at the door, so you just open it with your phone.