Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I wanted to give this product two stars because it works sometimes. I want to be fair here. That said, I don't think it's fair to inflate a rating of a product that's just a hair above useless. When I first got it back in March (over six months ago) it seemed just a little buggy. Boy do I wish I hadn't trusted August and kept it. I don't even care about the money so much as I would like hours of my life back. If you want to know how this review ends, as if it isn't obvious, DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT. Keep reading if you want the details. When you think about it, this product is almost completely pointless outside of providing access to your home temporarily and, if you pay another $50 for the adapter, to unlock the door for someone while you're away. That all presumes that it functions, which is a HUGE assumption. Even if we don't count the fact that they couldn't get it to work with iOS 9 until a good amount of time after its release (you know, despite having access to the beta for months), it really only works half the time anyway. Even though they finally added iOS 9 support, the stupid thing still doesn't work at all. I've tried it with six phones, resetting some of them and doing everything support instructed me to do. It just refuses to work even though it connects. This all happened post-iOS 9, but now devices running iOS 8 don't work with it either. It connects but pretends it can't. But let's give August the benefit of the doubt here. Perhaps there were changes to the way Bluetooth works on iOS that required new hardware specifications Apple didn't provide during the beta. That has happened before, so it's a possibility, yet every other one of my Bluetooth devices (including ones like Tile that basically connect in the same way) worked fine after the iOS update. And maybe the device just stopped working at some point, but that seems very coincidental. Beyond all of this it just would fail to connect over and over again. Sometimes it'd work, sometimes it wouldn't. But this isn't the kind of product that can fail—ever. If it fails, you can't get into your house. You always need a backup key, which sort of defeats the purpose of owning it for the most part. So before this turns into an even longer rant, here is a list of why this thing sucks: - It looks big in the pictures, but you will still be surprised by how large it is. - It fails to connect to your phone via the auto unlock feature most of the time, and fails manually about half of the time (in my experience with my phone and others and August's support team didn't seem to think this was unusual). - Sometimes when the door tries to lock or unlock it can't. It is very particular about how the door is aligned otherwise it won't lock. I installed a special weather seal just to keep the door in August's favorite spot and it still screwed up even when aligned perfectly. You could hear the motor struggling to turn the lock, yet with no adjustment whatsoever it'll work minutes later. You just don't know what you're going to get. - The battery cover falls off constantly when manually turning the lock. My friends cannot figure out how to do it properly no matter how many times I show them, and even I screw it up a third of the time. The front cover is just a victim of poor design. - This one I learned recently and is the most absurd: August advertises a feature of the smart lock that allows you to download the app on someone else's phone, log in as yourself, and unlock the door in the event you get locked out. That would work just fine if you didn't have to get a freakin' confirmation code that GETS SENT TO YOUR PHONE NUMBER. August, how the heck do you expect anyone to use someone else's phone if you need to get a confirmation code on your dead/missing/lost phone? Why even have a feature like this if it's completely dependent on having access to the device that you're not supposed to need to use the feature. This makes absolutely no sense. - As hinted at earlier, proximity features are very hit and miss. Also, the auto lock functionality is a good idea but it'd be a lot better if it would not engage if somebody is in or near the house so they don't get locked out. - You basically have to check the door every time the app says it managed to lock the door because sometimes it lies. And by sometimes I would estimate it happened to me about 25% of the time. Sometimes it says the door is unlocked when it isn't, too. You just can't understand how horribly unreliable this thing is until you use it. - It's slow to connect when you connect manually. - Developments and updates are slow. Maybe this will improve, but as of October 2015 you shouldn't expect any features or fixes in good time. I don't believe they can fix the problems with this thing, but even if they can it's going to be a looooong time before that happens based on their current track record. - I found their support team to be a little frustrating to deal with. When I worked with them I really, really wanted the smart lock to work. I wanted to keep it and use it and live in a future that I now realize makes no sense. I would like to have a smart lock, but a product like this just isn't viable without MANY ways of getting back inside. Fortunately you can still use a key, which is all I've done for months because I can't trust the smart lock to do its only job. Some good things, in the interest of fairness: - I found it very easy to install. It does seem to be compatible with the majority of locks and you can use it in an apartment building because it's easy to remove, too (something I'm very glad for because it's going in the recycling). - The batteries last several months. - Despite the fact that it doesn't work very well, the build quality and materials used seem excellent. The bottom line: even if this worked better, do you really need it? Even if it worked 99% of the time it wouldn't be worth it because you know what works 100% of the time? A key. You know what's smaller and easier to carry than your smartphone? A key. Spend $2 and get a copy of your key to take with you when you don't want to take the entire key ring. It's easier to take on a run or wherever else you're going where you want to travel light. At best this thing is useful as backup mechanism, but would you rather hide a key or give one to a friend in case you get locked out or hope that this piece of crap actually works? I think the answer is pretty obvious. P.S. If anyone from August is reading this and feels like posting an offer to help, please don't. You've tried and you've failed. All you'd be doing is trying to sound like you care to other Amazon customers and, in my experience, you really don't. Nobody needs your platitudes.