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.

1
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.