Six Months with the August Lock Pro (Review)

We've been in our new house for six months, and in some ways, it feels as though we just moved in.

In terms of AAAD projects.... it's been even slower going.

The house came fitted with an August Lock Pro, which has been a bit of a godsend in some ways... and has been a source of conflict in others.


When the lock works, it's beautiful.

The lock is unchanged from the outside. The key still works.

It's an EXTREMELY elegant solution. From the outside, you would not have any idea that there's a smart lock.

The August replaces the entire keyset on the inside. 

It can be spun left/right manually to lock or unlock the door, as you'd expect.

And as with any automatic lock, it can ALSO be controlled automatically.

The August lock paired with HomeKit well. It can be locked or unlocked with Siri, and if the house was left unlocked past a certain time, we set an automation so that it locks automatically.

The August app is simple, and we get notifications about WHO, specifically, opened or closed the back door, which is really nice.

For instance, I'm able to see that my parents arrived at my house, while I'm still at work.

THAT SAID.... there are issues.

If the door is not closed tightly, the deadbolt MIGHT "catch" in the locked position, no matter how much you spin the lock.

This makes it basically impossible to unlock the door and leave the house.

Don't get me wrong, some WD40 in the lock internals took care of the problem 99% of the time... and simply re-spinning the lock while holding the door closed tightly takes care of the other 1%.... but we've had relatives get extremely flustered at not being able to leave the house.

We also have an issue with controlling the lock remotely.

That's our issue, primarily with how I have HomeKit configured. 

(It's not unusual to see a "4 Home Hubs Not Responding" message).

But if we're going to be leaving keys outside for people to get in, what's the point of an automatic lock?

Mrs. AAAD has had enough of those initial problems to want it replaced completely, ideally with a lockset with an external keypad.

I'd prefer to add one of August's own keypads, (pictured) which would at the very least eliminate the "hide a key for the sitter" issues. 

There are a whole host of home projects in play for 2020.

I've haven't written about many of them here, because they've been more of the "home updating/remodeling" genre, and less of the "smart home" genre.

Frankly, the house had many of our original projects covered. It already has whole-home Ethernet, for instance. The basement is phenomenal. It's wired for music.

But there are changes coming.

Playstation Vue is no longer, and we'll need to have a viable replacement in play by February 1, 2020.

I'll be adding MyQ HomeKit garage control, and Lutron Caseta lighting control, over the winter.

Also, we just acquired a seriously large TV.

I mean.... we may have finally acquired a TV so big that even I think it's ridiculous.