Im planning to buy a door lock, Im a bit confused about how to pick one.
I have a C8 hub, but we all have Apple products, my needs are:
Yale, either ZWave or Zigbee. These are the least complained about Smart Locks here in this forum. Schlage, on the other hand, is the most complained about.
To do this you can use the built in HK bridge to share the lock to Apple Home, so the lock does not need to be Apple HK compatible. I use the older custom HK integration to open/close my garage door from my watch and it works great.
I have 3 Kwikset 914, both Zigbee and Z-wave plus, and they are very good. And you can use the same physical key on all of them.
Make sure you don’t get an old non-plus Z-wave one.
While Schlage locks do seem to be difficult to pair, especially the Z-wave locks, the advantage of Schlage locks is that are mechanically well built. They are the only smart locks to receive the ANSI Type I security rating. That means they are difficult to defeat mechanically. Other smart locks are rated ANSI Type II which is approved for residential use, but it is not as secure as Type I.
The highest security rating is important to me as I value the inhabitants and contents of my home. I paired the Schlage Connect Z-wave lock with my C-7 originally and have since migrated it to a C-8 hub. When doing the initial pairing, I removed the entire lock from the door, moved it to about 10 feet line of sight from the hub and followed the exclusion/inclusion process. It has been working well ever since. While I needed Z-wave range extenders/repeaters with the C-7 hub, with the newer C-8 hub, the lock is connected directly without the need for repeaters.
While the Year in Review topic on locks is almost 2 years old, it does have some good information...
Currently running 10 (yes, ten) Kwikset 914s (Zigbee) here, with no problems whatsoever. They work perfectly with Hubitat (including the built-in Lock Code Manager app), and all average about a year between battery changes (AAs). Highly recommended.
We just installed the Level Lock+ with homekey support. I haven't connected it to hubitat but it appears in the home app and being able to hold my phone or watch up to it to unlock is priceless.
This and it's like @csteele said, I did my own research on this forum and kept coming back to this lock. I've been very happy with mine, the pricing is reasonable, and they even go on sale every now and then.
I ended up with this one here: Amazon.com
They make various versions, you'll want to focus on the Yale Assure 2 line (latest). I liked the keypad model with a key. While I'm sure this is very much debatable (and solely my opinion), the touchscreen model is one more thing that could potentially break, and I wanted to be able to have a backup key in case something went wonky with the battery mechanism.
They also sell different lock cylinders (sold separately) depending on if you have door locks with one uniform standard (typically Schlage or Kwikset). By default, they come with the Kwikset cylinder. If you were like me, and want your locks keyed to a single key, keep this in mind. Link: Yale Deadbolt Cylinder for Assure Lock 2 - Yale Home
You can make just about any lock work with various degrees of difficulty and support hubs/bridges required.
I would suggest following the recommendations for a Zigbee or ZWave lock and with the built-in HomeKit integration or Homebridge.
Yale is my preferred lock. I have 5 of them in this house and I had two in my old house. They have been trouble free and with the Zigbee or Z-Wave versions you can use Hubitat Lock Code Manager with them.
If I was to buy a new lock for our front door, I would look into the ones that support Apple Home Key for more convenience on entry, even though I would lose some of the HE functionality like Lock Code Manager on that one lock.
I used the Level Bolt, because I had a handleset that I didn't want to replace, and it was the only lock I could find on the market that worked with it.
I use it with HomeKit, but that's a pain in the butt, since instead of automatically unlocking the door when I get inside my geofence, they ask me if I want to unlock it. An "automation" isn't an automation if I have to open the bloody app and press a button. That's crap.
I also notice that Level has just released Level Connect, which is a wifi interface to the lock. No word on if they will release an API (likely not) or support Hubitat directly, but someone with far more knowledge than myself could possibly put together a driver that works.
Download the Hubitat app
