I installed my new Yale Assure Lock 2 with Z-Wave today and so far it is working great! I got it connected to my C8 hub without any issues
One thing seems to be missing, which is information about the contact sensor built-in to the lock (Yale/August calls this "DoorSense"). This post from 2019 by @mike.maxwell seems to suggests that the contact sensor capability should be supported:
I'm using the "Generic Z-Wave Lock" driver, and I didn't see any other drivers available. The state of the contact sensor (open or closed) is not showing up in the "Current State" of the device, and the lock isn't listed as an available "Contact Sensor" when I try to create a basic rule.
DoorSense ...
After joining the lock to Hubitat/Z-Wave DoorSense did not operate in the App or Hubitat. I recalibrated DoorSense and now it is operational in the App. Joining Z-Wave seemed to make DoorSense non-op. Just the same, I see no indication in Hubitat that DoorSense is detected/reported or the RM can use DoorSense. If someone can advise me of any error(s) in my assessment, please do so.
Yes, I did see that the DoorSense support mentioned in that thread was for the August lock, and I have no direct evidence to suggest that DoorSense is exposed via Z-wave for the Yale Assure Lock 2.
However, August and Yale share a parent company (Assa Abloy) and seem to have unified a lot of their smart lock technology. For example: you use the same account for both the Yale and August apps, and once I signed into my August account in the Yale app, it pulled up my brother's August lock automatically. In fact, the apps look nearly identical... I couldn't find anything different between the two other than the branding. In addition both companies call the contact sensor "DoorSense", and the August Connect WiFi Bridge works fine with the Yale Assure Lock 2.
Maybe I'm jumping a bit too far, but it wouldn't surprise me if their Z-Wave firmware is common or very similar between the two devices.
Regardless: I guess part of my question is "Should it be working?" or similarly "Has anybody else got DoorSense on their Yale Assure Lock 2 visible in Hubitat?" or is anyone familiar enough with the Z-wave drivers for that lock to know for certain whether it is exposed or not?
In response to what we all "want to know" ... and what aaiyar specifically asked ... I emailed Yale support ... and this is what I received in reply ...
Unfortunately, the DoorSense feature is only available for the Yale Access app. We're always working on improving both products and apps, we will go ahead and forward your suggestion on how to improve to our development team for review and consideration. Thank you for providing us with your feedback on how we can improve.
I would recommend that we get as many Hubitat (and maybe other hub persons) to request DoorSense be exposed to hubs over Z-Wave ... by emailing support@yalelock.com.
That has been my experience with their sales staff. Never had to use support. Definitely a good idea to email support and request that DoorSense status be exposed via z-wave.
Email sent. My experience with Yale Customer Support has been great so far, but I haven't worked with Technical Support yet. I'm not going to hold my breath for them to release this feature soon, but who knows?
I guess we could also post 4* reviews on Amazon and the like too. I'd prefer that Yale "step up to the plate" though. They said they were compatible with Hubitat ... and it appears that they are only partially compatible.
I realize this isn't Matter, but this is a great example of how I think Matter will fall short of everyone's expectations too...
These companies all would much prefer if customers stayed in their own ecosystem for data mining etc. One effective way to do that is to not share a key/popular feature outside of their ecosystem.
Just because a framework exists that can share everything (ZB, ZW, Matter, whatever) doesn't mean that everything will be shared.
The now legacy WiFi August/Yale Connects don't report Door Sense to Apple Home either. So they've always restricted the function. Exposing it now, no matter the protocol, would be a change of direction.
It sounds like my tech responder seems to understand better than this guy. This guy is just "passing the buck" onto Hubitat ... but Hubitat can't do anything if the data is not exposed over the interface.
I know that the Doorsense status is available over ZWave somehow, when I had my Yale Assure 2 paired to ZWave JS on Home Assistant, it had the door status and lock status there. Unfortunately Yale took the exact way out described above and refused to even reply to my emails after I mentioned Home Assistant. They said that Hubitat was supported so I just got mine today but was not happy that Doorsense isn't there. I'm new to Hubitat and don't even know what a driver is. Is that a way to supposedly pull out the Doorsense value?
I also have a friend with the Yale Assure Lock 2 and Z-wave and Home Assistant, and he also reported that the DoorSense value is reported over Z-wave, so the information must be available.
A "driver" is the code that Hubitat uses to communicate with a particular device.
Roughly speaking, there are two options when it comes to drivers on Hubitat:
Built-in drivers that come with Hubitat and are maintained by Hubitat. These are all closed-source.
Community-authored drivers (which may include manufacturer-authored drivers). I believe these are all open-source.
The only driver I'm aware of for the Yale Assure Lock 2 is the "Generic Z-Wave Lock" provided by Hubitat. I have not found a community authored driver for the Yale Assure Lock 2 (although I have not looked recently).
Our options for getting DoorSense support are:
Convince the maintainer for the official Hubitat driver to add support.
Find or write a community-authored driver that includes the DoorSense status, probably by porting the one from Home Assistant.
I'm a software engineer, but I've never written a Hubitat driver before. I've considered trying option 2, but haven't found the time.
I will confirm for you: Assure2 Zwave is supported via the Generic ZWave Lock driver at this moment on Hubitat. Therefore, only generic lock features are available (lock, unlock, codes management).
That said, I have a feeling Yale is restricting these features now, probably for some stupid idea that it will lead to more profits by forcing people to use their own apps and ecosystem to have those features. The lock used to also report when the lock jammed, however Hubitat didn't recognize that output as "jammed" at the time. Just about the time I asked them to add support for reporting lock jam as "uknown" status (apparently "jammed" isn't officially supported) and they implemented it in the generic driver, Yale issued a firmware update that stopped sending any output at all when the lock jammed. Therefore, now you just have no idea at all if it's ever jammed or unsuccessfully locked unless you look in Yale's app at the history, which in my experience is pretty awful at actually tracking any events.
After a year I am still dumb/new this, but wanted tovprovide an update that I got from support@yalelock.com concerning DoorSense being exposed to hubs over Z-Wave.
Due to the way the DoorSense sensor interacts with the Yale Access smart modules, z-wave connections or z-wave-powered devices in general might not be compatible with the sensor or may not have the proper programming to work with the sensor. It will really depend on whether the hub manufacturer supports such accessories.
For anyone else stumbling in here, using the "August pro z-wave lock driver" for the yale assure 2 with a z-wave module does actually appear to provide doorsense info through the "contact" state variable. I've not tested the code fields, but the lock/unlock functionality also works with that driver and that's good enough for me
