duped 2 days ago

Level smart lock. I have a handful of issues with it, but the big one is that it falls in the category of "tech product never tested outside of California" because the thing just does not work outside of the Goldilocks days where it's not too hot, cold, humid, or dry (for me, it works maybe half the time during the summer, and never during the winter). To hardware product designers: capacitive touch sensing is not reliable in the cold.

4
mrWiz 1 day ago

Yale Real Living electronic locks have been great for me down to -30ish F. I’ve never used any of the wireless smarthome bits tho - just standalone locks.

seanmcdirmid 2 days ago

I had the nest lock for a long time and was really disappointed with battery life and reliability.

The Schlage encode plus smart lock is the only one that seems to work right at the moment (it also looks the worst). NFC is the way to go for most uses, and matter over thread beats WiFi anything by a long shot.

Not sure about capacitive buttons, but I can see real buttons wearing out or allowing moisture through.

duped 2 days ago

There are a variety of outdoor rated pushbuttons you can buy that don't have their electrical properties change due to the moisture content of a user's fingertips, or lack thereof.

But just to be clear - the level doesn't have buttons. It has touch sensor on the enclosure to lock/unlock by just touching the lock, while it looks like a plain-old deadbolt. The problem is the sensor is garbage, so it's basically a plain-old-deadbolt but costs 5 times as much

solardev 2 days ago

I've used the cheapo Wyze Lock (https://www.wyze.com/products/wyze-lock?variant=423027510806...), which is a deadbolt-only replacement with the $20 keypad (https://www.wyze.com/products/wyze-lock-keypad?srsltid=AfmBO...) and it's worked well for a few years. The buttons never gave me any issues, and indeed I use that instead of the app to unlock.

After a few years and several doors/apts, the deadbolt itself seems to be showing some issues sometimes (have to pull the door close tightly for it to lock right)... I'm not sure if that's a door alignment issue or maybe a thermal freeze/thaw issue or something... need to debug it further... but it's a lot cheaper and more reliable (and uglier) than most smart locks I've tried, including the much fancier ones.

seanmcdirmid 2 days ago

Level has a keypad as an extra, so I thought you were talking about that. They also support NFC, but that has nothing to do with capacitive sensors. Anyways, I never heard anything good about that lock and so never bothered trying it. The Schlage Encode Plus is pretty reliable (I researched a bunch of reviews before buying) for how up I use it, if only it weren’t so ugly.

FireBeyond 1 day ago

I bailed on Level (now using a Schlage Encode Plus) after the second time a battery died in it with zero notification from the app. Given time of the year, I suspect it probably wasn't helped by temperature.

quickthrowman 1 day ago

Their website doesn’t even list an operating temperature range. Huge red flag for a piece of equipment that is installed outdoors.

If you buy something that is installed outdoors, make sure it’s from a company that has previously manufactured things that are installed outdoors, or it will be a piece of shit.

This Schlage model has a listed operating temperature range, because Schlage has been manufacturing things that are installed outside for over 100 years: https://www.schlage.com/en/home/products/BE489WBCENFFF.html

seanmcdirmid 1 day ago

I recommend the encode plus rather than the encode, since the former is matter over thread and not Wi-Fi, and will be more reliable with better battery life.