August Home AUG-SL05-M01-S01 August Wi-Fi, (4th Generation) Smart Lock, Silver

Use whichever adaptor that puts the notches at 12/3/6/9 o’clock
If you had asked me yesterday I would have given this lock 2 stars. Been living with it sorta connecting and auto locking or unlocking one time and then not re-syncing the status in the app for almost a year. Tried perfecting the latch so it was smooth and didn’t catch AT ALL for a good while and that wasn’t the issue. We tried getting a better WiFi signal, disabling all the battery draining features/notifications, calibrating the lock, restarting the app etc. Sometimes it would work a couple times and then resume not syncing on the app. The WiFi connection was strong, the log would note the times we unlocked it manually. Still, I was hung up on the lock to app signal being the cause of our issues and got a august connect adaptor to try and help (plus I read that could help slow the battery drain). Turns out even the 4th gen lock doesn’t allow an external connect device so that was a dead end. Maybe the connect I got is an older model or something but I couldn’t get them to link, it just complained there were no compatible devices at setup). Another clue that this wasn’t the cause should have been that even when using the phone’s Bluetooth signal it wouldn’t update the lock status after the first app unlock. Also when we would unlock from the app the light would start turning green on the lock then end with a red once it unlocked.Finally found a FAQ doc that said to make sure the notches on the lock adapter were at the vertical position (12/3/6/9 o’clock) when the lock was at it’s ‘default’ position (unlocked). When I swapped out the adaptor to the blue one from the light brown and recalibrated the lock one more time it started working perfectly. No more weird mismatch between the app and lock position even when the WiFi signal was good! Range of motion is much farther when the lock opens now and it has a fancy chirp to show it unlocked correctly. That chirp made me so happy after fighting with the app this long, but it didn’t compare to clicking the app a second time and having it reliably relock immediately.It felt like it was ‘almost’ working before figuring this issue out so I assumed the app/some buggy firmware was at fault but it was installation error on my part! The rest of the install was so easy. Oh well.Also, go get the rechargeable 123a batteries for this lock. Saw that tip from someone else and just got two sets to swap between. The disposable batteries drain pretty fast and are expensive.

High Hope but Terrible Bugs + Failed Promises
I’m not sure how much more I can vent my frustration about the August Lock over the last 11 months than to share it here. Unfortunately customer service has repeatedly delayed a response in the last 11 months to provide a solution for the problems I’m facing. Unfortunately, the issues above continue to happen.I’ve never felt so insecure about one piece of my house – the August Lock I intended to buy has not been the easy, accessible, and consistent lock I’ve hoped for and I will continue to express my frustration to Amazon, to August, and to other friends + family until these fixes are made.Issues with the lock itself (which led to me having to hire a locksmith to unlock the door for me since the August lock failed one time):- The promise that I’ll be notified when my battery life is low has not been delivered for the last 2 battery replacements. The only way I found out that the battery life was low was by calling August after I was already locked out of my house, to which I then had to purchase a $100 locksmith to come and open the door for me for something that should have been preventable by August. Once again, I never received a notification that my battery life was low – and that’s happened for the last 2 cycles.- My wifi on my August has shown to disconnect and reconnect every hour of the day, significantly draining my battery. The efficient and up-to-date wifi technology is not delivering as promised. I have a top of the line router and I’ve noticed hundreds of other consumers complain about the same issue – so it’s guaranteed not just me.- The battery life has been severely less than the 3-6 mo. promised. Perhaps that’s due to the wifi reconnecting, but it continuously drains beneath that period and I’ve never spent so much for batteries before, not even being able to find out it’s low until it stops working.- The lock repeatedly has long pauses where I can’t unlock my door despite being next to it with Bluetooth on. It often has a delay where I stand outside waiting for my door to unlock despite clicking to unlock.Issues with the app:- My in-laws visited from Korea and were intending to use the August app as guests. I was able to add their names and contact as guests to the app and they received the notification to sign up. They did so, but were unable to unlock the door despite seeing the lock on their phone (brand new Galaxy – latest model). Multiple times they tried (on Bluetooth and on wifi separately), but it only worked once out of maybe 20 tries to click the red dot in the middle. I however was right next to them and could unlock and lock the door as needed. Again, the august lock has promised to be easily accessible (and only accessible) by smart phones, but in this situation it wouldn’t work and I wish I had a keypad to use for them. I don’t think I need to be the one paying $50 for that since the “promised” option from August didn’t work.- August says and promises that the lock is easily transferrable for guests, friends and family, and vacation guests. It has not worked as promised, and I feel like I am getting scammed by August because it won’t even work for my father-in-law. He had no way to enter the house on his own despite having the app installed, and the lock (my house) visible on his screen. The app just would not work for him. How can I expect to rent out my place to guests if the basic app doesn’t even work for them? If August can’t deliver this promise with this lock, then I would expect at the very least they give a keypad to everyone to mitigate against that.Issues about customer service:- I’ve called in so many times only to be told 1) I can’t get a refund, and 2) that a supervisor will call back, to which they never do.- I’m told repeatedly that the August lock will be improved and updated, but currently there are no fixes (talk about terrible tech support!) Are they not working to improve it?- At this point, I’ve spent probably 5-10+ hours calling August team and researching on my own how to fix these problems, to which thousands of other forums seem to note the same issues. Clearly there’s a problem with the lock and no one is fixing it or letting us know that it’s going to be fixed.

Did a lot of research and settled on this one because of the good reviews and also the ability to use our own deadbolt. Set up was a tiny of glitchy-the app isn’t 100% perfect. But, once it was set up it’s been great! Love that I can lock and unlock it with my phone, and that it doesn’t look like a smart lock from outside. Would buy again.

3rd time is a charm as the first two brands I bought had serious issues but I only had slight difficulty connecting this to Wi-Fi and it appear that in app instructions displayed the coloured locking pieces in the wrong orientation but it’s so easy to install i didn’t really need any help. Works well with Alexa and would prefer an option that doesn’t require voice password but I fully understand why it does.