Keyless Connected Smart Lock - CHROME PLATED

This review is after the first 24 hours so the opinion may change - but I doubt it. This was purchased not so much to allow us to open the door but to release the door for visitors as we live in a town house with three flights of stairs to negotiate to tell salesmen to 'go away'. First Impressions The lock was purchased together with a Smartthings adapter. The lock seems a solid piece of kit, as I would expect from Yale. The adapter is a tiny lump of plastic that plugs into the lock battery box. Installation Installing the lock was pretty straightforward. The only problem is it needs an existing or new lock with 60 mm between the edge of the door and the key. I did not realise that there were different locks and found ours was 40 mm. That would have worked still but the wide Yale unit would have interfered with the door frame. The easiest answer was to buy a 60mm lock and install it near the existing lock, which now adds security when we are away from home. Installation was a simple matter of the usual carpentry jobs of drilling holes and chiselling that are required for any lock. If it is replacing an existing Yale type key cylinder on a 60mm lock it is just one extra 20mm hole in the door. Once installed, without the Smartthings adapter, it is just a case of following the clear instructions of setting unlock codes.. In Use To release the lock one can either place one of the supplied cards and tags on the lock or enter a personal code and it releases. To be honest it is just as easy to use a key so there is little advantage other than being able to give others a code so they can get access without having to hand out keys. It is possible to set codes that die after 24 hours or delete a code which is no longer required so this could be good when tradesmen need access. 20 codes are possible. The lock becomes a different animal once the Smartthings option is added. Smartthings This needs a small dongle to be plugged in to the battery box and the lock 'twinned' with Smartthings. Having read critical reviews on this option I was a little concerned but did not need to be. Having entered the code shown on the instructions into the lock I asked my SmartThings app to look for items. It took about 0.5 seconds for Smartthings to connect to the lock. I did this with the lock on my desk before installing and was a little concerned that the front door is a long way from my router in a steel framed house that is not good at sending wi-fi around. Our Ring doorbell needed a wi-fi extension near the door to work reliably but I need not have worried as the Yale works perfectly when twinned to the main router in our living room. Once twinned the lock can be opened by a one button press on a Smartthings app and it's also possible to set up actions so that when the lock is opened any SmartThings lights, etc. are turned on.. The lock is now really useful. I can release it if required from anywhere in the world I have internet access, let people in without needing to go down three flights of stairs and release the front door as I get out of my car in pouring rain. Love it. I can also check, if required, which user opened the door at which time by looking at Smartthings log. Amazon Alexa. Once the lock is twinned with SMARTTHINGS It can also be twinned with Alexa but before reporting why this is useless a note on using the lock. When the lock is unlocked it is possible to set a time delay before it automatically relocks - which makes sense. The auto relock function can be cancelled so then a separate signal is needed to relock. Not sure why you would want to do this though. Having spent some time linking the lock to Alexa I found that any command to unlock is blocked and only relock commands are possible. Thinking about it this makes sense. If it was possible to say "Alexa unlock front door" it would be possible for any thief to shout through the letterbox !! Conclusion So far I am impressed. The kit was easy to install with little or no reference to instructions and it seems to work well. Using a code to enter is, I think, the last resort if you close the door and don't have a card or mobile phone to unlock with as it’s no quicker than using a key. With the Smartthings option (at extra cost) it fits in well to a modern connected household. If, like me, it's a long trek down stairs to the front door to let visitors in it is a useful energy saving option as well. One small snag. If I have a visitor who rings the Ring doorbell my phone opens the Ring app. I tell the visitor to come in but in order for him/her to do so I need to close the Ring app, open the Smarthings app and press the door release. By the time I have done all that the visitor has pushed the door and found it would not open as I am still changing apps. Not insurmountable but it would be great if I could release the door from within the Ring app. Makes sense and I now see this is possible with many remote operation locks but not Yale. come on Yale. Get together with Ring and get your locks integrated as well. UPDATE After a month of faultless use with code and SmartThings it has failed. In normal use the handle spins freely when the door is locked and after inputting code etc a sound is heard which must be some sort of internal bolt which connects the lock to the handle. Electronically it still works and the bolt can be heard to move. The snag is it no longer connects with the handle properly so although it unlocks the door when turned one way it now spins free the other way. The good news is having phoned Amazon on Saturday evening a new kit was delivered by Sunday lunchtime and is now fitted and working. I love the system so hope I just had a faulty product.

I have been using this for a year now. I never review anything until it reveals all its secrets! Lets go in stages: I installed it myself. I am handy, but it was clear and easy. The instructions are clear, and the parts fit well. So far so good. You will need to be careful to cut the lever to the correct length, which requires cutting metal and some filing, but nothing difficult if your patient. I put the batteries that came with it in the interior battery box here I would like a more robust cover, its okay, but not impressive plastic quality. It is not accessible to any would-be thieves, so this is not a security issue, but a potentially longevity issue as I can imagine it getting hit by something as its mounted on the door itself. Having said that, it has not broken during the past year. Next step was programming it and getting the codes and the key fobs to work. That again was all smooth, no issues. I ordered extra fobs and programmed those as well. All good. The batteries have been working for a year now, no issues. I love that it has a 9 volt backup contact on the exterior in case you are gone and the interior batteries fail. The lock itself keeps opening, no issues. All key fobs are working and happy to report nothing has failed. This has saved our backs more twice when a house guest was locked out and another time my son lost his keys - the manual code entry means you never get locked out again. The lock itself is very well made and I am impressed by the quality. I was a slight skeptic when buying it, but have to say, I cant really believe we were using a key with all its compromises and the fact that anyone can copy it. This has so many advantages and has made our AirBnb guest access so much better. I can highly recommend it!

This is a good quality, fully featured lock that I'm happy with now I've got it sorted. The installation was troublesome to say the least. If you don't drill the holes exactly right the cable and pin for the top part of the lock doesn't line up quite right. (Not the barrel hole, but the one above it where the keypad is.) Also notice the grey box on the inside of the door. The product description doesn't make it clear that this is part of the lock solution, and needs to be installed on the inside - so if you have a security chain above your latch on the inside of the door then you may have more DIY than you bargained for. Once installed it was easy to setup if you follow the instructions and I was able to set user codes and register tags and fobs without any issues. A slight wrinkle for me is that I bought the Yale Bridge and access module, and when I installed it that wiped all the user settings (everything except my custom admin PIN). It meant people couldn't get in. Once I realised what was going on I rehregistered the tags and fobs and things went back to normal. If you are using the Yale Bridge a slightly quirky change is that you can no longer egister user PINs via the keypad - you have to do it in the Yale Access app. Having the Yale Bridge is great as you get notifications when the door has been unlocked when you are away from home and can even remotely register a user PIN or open it for a visitor if necessary from wherever you happen to be. Overall I'm very pleased with the product.

I wanted to get a keyless contact door lock that worked with a latch lock. THis was pretty much the only decent option available. I bought the lock, the wifi connection access module and the wifi bridge along with key fobs and tags for your phone. It all works well. The installation was a pain because I had not realised until I started the install that my front door has some sheet metal panels in front and back, which were difficult to drill through at the right width for the install. Once I managed to do that, the rest if the install was very straight forward. It all worked well together with my existing latch lock. The access module seems to connect to the bridge over wifi and the bridge uses the wifi to make the lock available over the internet. You can use the lock itself to set up pin codes and tags/fobs but you can also set up codes via the app, which is a straighforward experience. Initially the bridge did not seem to connect so well to the lock. I repositioned it and the connection improved. I had to look up the different codes for the light on the bridge to understand what a solid green light or if it flashes a number of different times, what it all means. I managed to connect this into my home assistant vua the August integration (works a treat) and also integrated into Alexa via the relevant skill. You set up a code so that if you ask alexa to unlock the door, it will ask you for the code before doing so. The use case for purchasing this was to allow carers for my elderly parents into the house while I am at work, ultimately through setting up access codes. I have a ring doorbell and cameras in the ground floor of the house to monitor access. I like that you can make access limited to certain times (e.g. when the carers are scheduled to visit) and days and also inactivate codes quickly if required.

A cautionary tale. The fitter I hired to fit my Yale keyless connected door lock followed the Yale instructions perfectly. Specifically the instructions for retrofitting with an existing night latch. The instructions tell you how long to cut the tail bar, and whilst for a new night latch the instructions say 18mm, for a retrofit night latch the instructions very specifically say to instead *match the same length as your existing tail bar*. This is precisely what my fitter did. The lock worked perfectly for 5 months, but then developed a fault when trying to auto-relock. After going through the troubleshooting steps with Yale customer support, they finally decided that the tailbar had been cut "too short". They decided to treat this as consumer error. Critically you cannot just replace the tailbar like you would be able to do with any other lock. Yale informed me I would have to buy an entire new smart lock at my own expense. So. Please be aware that if you are retrofitting this smart lock to an existing night latch, that the Yale installation instructions are incorrect. If you follow them exactly your lock may work perfectly for several months, but your tailbar may in the future be deemed to be "too short" and you may find your lock soon develops the same fault which cannot be corrected. Whilst the lock worked, it was fantastic and I was delighted with it. But I cannot rate this more than 1 star if the lock fails within months as a result of avoidably incorrect installation instructions, not user error, and the customer is left with no resolution. I've escalated this complaint with Yale, as their instructions are clearly at fault and we followed them to the letter. Hopefully Yale will accept this is their error and provide a replacement lock. But at this point I'm left with a malfunctioning lock and the possible expense of buying another, not to mention paying to have it fitted again. And it still remains unclear exactly how long to cut the tailbar for a retrofit, per Yale instructions. I'll update this review if Yale revisit their decision.

Honestly I was unsure when ordering as you hear lots of things about these smart locks. However k was very pleasantly surprised. Great quality. Really sturdy. Fitting template that comes with it is really helpful and simple to use. The installation video was great. A little unclear to me on the battery fitment. After I watched it a few times it became clear to me. There is a thread in the top of the lock that the bottom of the battery section bolts to through the bottom metal bracket. Coding the fobs took a few attempts but once I got the hang of it, it was smooth sailing. Would 100% recommend

I bought this to add easy entry and due to family members loosing their keys, and to allow visitors access without giving them a physical key. It looks great and does everything I'd hoped for, but I also added the WiFi option later (see below). It was simple to install (with DIY skills) with a new night latch at the same time (it would be even easier if fitting to an existing one), although the instructions for this and the night latch from Yale could be much clearer! And you only get one chance to cut the connecting bar to the right length - unless you cut it too long if course! Pairing the fobs and cards, or setting the PIN manually is a little tedious, but relatively straitforward, and the instructions for doing this are very clear (I set them before fitting to the door so I could test it out before cutting holes in my door but also so I didn't have to stand outside doing it) The batteries seem to have a reasonable life span, and warn you when they need changing (so far I've not had to replace mine in 2 months, I expect they'll last quite a while as it goes to a low power state when not being used), and if you don't change them and they drain there's an emergency power via a 9V PP3 underneath (obviously you'd need a PP3 battery to hand - I'm going to put one in a weatherproof box outside, just in case!). After a week of use I also bought the wireless module WiFi bridge (https://amzn.eu/d/1FRYbKB) so I could control it remotely and manage users. Adding this appeared to reset my fobs so I had to go back round that task (which was much quicker the second time around, although I had to stand outside this time as it was fitted to the door), and in fact it's become our default to each use our PINs than the fobs. The app isn't great, but functional, allowing additional users (guests) to be invited either as a permanent user or with limited access. Guests have to download the app before you can give them a PIN which is a bit rubbish so I've set up a dummy user on my work mobile so I can give people (builder, etc) the PIN without them needing to install the app, I can then just go in and change the PIN afterwards. The app shows who accessed the door and when. And of course remotely being able to unlock the door from the app (the main feature I bought this for). The wireless module also has a magnetic sensor so it knows if the door is open, closed, or ajar (isn't closed properly) which I think is useful, it requires a small magnet (included) to be stuck to the door frame near the lock - I don't recall seeing this in the details for the module - but is actually a great feature.

Has been on the door for a few months now, I added the z-wave interface and connected it to my Home Assistant which makes managing entry codes a lot simpler - nfc tags can't be managed this way unfortunately, but that is a very mi or shortcoming since one would need to be at the lock to add one anyway - but it would be nice to be able to block a tag remotely as soon as realising it had been lost or stolen. Batteries are still the ones that were supplied with the lock and still show 90% (they started at 90%, but haven't dropped yet). As an insurance against the possible inaccuracy of the battery life reported over z-wave, I have a brand new lithium 9v battery safely stashed near the front door in case of emergency. The lock is extremely sturdy - I have zero concerns about its resilience to an attack. The buzzer that sounds if the front of the lock is separated from the battery box on the inside of the door is a bit weak though - it wouldn't be very loud outside. To mitigate this (not that I believe it would be an issue anyway, but Home Automation is a lifestyle/hobby as much as it makes any real world sense!) I have a z-wave siren mounted on the ceiling (9ft high open porch) which is programmed to sound if the lock tamper alarm is triggered (the z-wave standard has a message type covering exactly this scenario) which would scare the living s*** out anyone within 3 feet of it and certainly attract the attention of the neighbours if they weren't already aware of the noise of tampering with the thing. Installation was fairly easy - I already had an ERA BS Nightlatch on the door with a Schlage cylinder, so fitting was simply a case of drilling the additional hole for the battery cable / upper sconce mount. The home I had for the cylinder was a bit oval though, so required a bit of massaging with a file as the cylinder part of the lock is round (as it should be, really) so this is something to be aware of if your existing lock hasn't been installed to the highest standard. I also have a draught excluder strip around the outside edge of the door frame - this doesn't actually interfere with the lock, but it is a tight squeeze. Not something most will need to be concerned with, but good to be aware of. The installation instructions say to cut the bar that engages with the latch with pliers/cutters. Do not attempt this! The bar is impressively hard steel, and required a decent hacksaw blade to cut. There is no way on earth it is being cut with any kind of pliers, maybe bolt croppers, but not cleanly. A carefully wielded dremel might do OK with a suitable cutting/grinding wheel if a hacksaw seems a bit too much like hard work.