August Home, Silver Wi-Fi Connected Smart Keyless Entry Door Lock, Electronic Door Lock Fits Your Existing Deadbolt in Minutes, ‎ ‎AUG-SL05-M01-S01

I purchased a second generation version of this lock in 2017 and it lasted a little over seven years until the mechanics wore out. Not a bad run. Being overall happy with the product, I purchased this latest generation.As the lock has gotten smaller, it is an entirely new installation. However, it is very simple. The exterior of your lock stays exactly the same and will still work with the existing key. Therefore this is a great choice for renters (where the landlord might need access in an emergency) or anyone else who wants to leave their current keys functional.The package comes with a piece of painters tape, which you tape over the outside of your existing lock so that it doesn't fall out during installation. On the inside, you simple unscrew the existing inside back plate of your lock and store it for move-out, the future, etc.You then place a provided plastic pin on the existing lock pin. Several adapters are provided for the different lock types. My lock has a '/' shaped pin. Then you attach the plate and then "ball" part of the unit which turns the lock and has the batteries. These are attached with two clamps, so that you can remove the "ball" easily at any point.This generation uses two lithium batteries instead of AAs like older models. Having only two batteries makes installation and replacement of them easy. I am now in month three of use with no sign of replacement needed yet. the batteries are CR123A, which look like mini AAs. They are not as ubiquitous as other types but are still available cheaply in bulk such as on this site.This model has two additional features vs. the Gen 2 I had: First, it can connect directly through wi-fi. You don't need a bridge like Apple Home. This apparently uses a little more battery, but I have it on just in case. I separately still connected it through Apple Home, which is the smart home app I use the most. Setup was very simple.Second, this model comes with a door proximity sensor. This is just a little magnet (or stuck-on) peanut-sized sensor which is placed an inch from the lock and will monitor the door's ajar status instead of just the position of the lock. You can set an alert in the app where you will be notified if the door has been open from one minute to 30 minutes (your choice via slider).This lock also locks and unlocks slightly quicker and more forcefully than my old Gen 2. Perhaps the lithium batteries give it more juice.Otherwise, the app comes with features like auto-lock, auto-unlock, and a log of all recent opens, closes, unlocks and locks.The only feature in the app which I would like tweaked is the auto-unlock feature, which presently requires you to be a certain amount of distance from your home before functioning upon your return. This is so it doesn't constantly unlock when you are home. However, the prescribed distance is a little small for me living in a big city. I wish this feature would work even when I'm only a block away not four or five. The suburban equivalent would be it working when you're at your neighbor's house down the block instead of driving to the grocery store.Lastly, I think at some point August should make a version of this lock with a rechargeable lithium battery via USB-C. Removable probably so you don't have to run a long cord.Overall, I think this is a great product though particularly because it's easy to install and keeps your existing exterior key lock.

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.