Schlage BE469 Woes

[bobbyD]

@tmcdonald

the batteries seem to go dead every 18 months or so

For a Z-Wave lock that is amazing battery longevity! You should be happy you get 18 months. Really happy...

[bobbyD]

@Rxich

I'll add my experience, I have tried Aeotec & Ring V2 repeaters, and still unreliable

And the moral of the story is that the only difference between a hub with a Schlage lock that works perfectly and one with a Schlage lock that performs poorly, is the lock itself. Thus the matter should be discussed with the manufacturer. Until they can deliver a consistent experience for our users, their locks will not be added back to the List of Compatible Devices.

[junk7001]

I switched from Homeseer to Hubitat but still keep all my Schlage locks on the Homeseer hub. I did this because their a pain to add and for security reasons. All work as they should. I'm glad I got lazy. The only problem I have is one lock died after 5 years. I'm replacing it with a yolink lock.

[672southmain]

@bobbyD

And the moral of the story is that the only difference between a hub with a Schlage lock that works perfectly and one with a Schlage lock that performs poorly, is the lock itself.

Well, there is the variable of the lock firmware version, too. My two BE469ZP locks have firmware 0.11.0 and 0.10.9. Schlage does not and will not provide lock firmware updates.

As the forum old-timers may remember, my locks were originally BE469NX (Z-Wave non-plus) that I upgraded to BE469ZP (Z-Wave Plus) by swapping out the electronics with electronics parts of used locks I bought on eBay.

[rlithgow1]

Yeah 7.10 and above seem to be the firmwares that work regardless of plus/non plus

[jbilodea]

I had MANY problems with mines (3 BE479), one is even in my garden shack, about 75 feet from my house. But since using reliable locks APP, they are now working perfectly.

[Release] Reliable Locks

Reliable Locks app for Hubitat An app that will create virtual locks that 'wrap' your physical lock devices, making them more reliable. Purpose Some smart locks are not reliable about reporting their status changes. For example, my Kwikset z-wave locks will sometimes accept a lock command from Hubitat, lock themselves, but never report the 'locked' state back to Hubitat. This app 'wraps' the locks inside a virtual lock that tries to make them more reliable. Then you expose the virtual re…

[bobbyD]

@672southmain

Well, there is the variable of the lock firmware version, too.

Isn't that a manufacturer problem also? Delivering a consistent user experience among the same model is their responsibility. If the user had the power to update the firmware, there wouldn't be any variations.

[brianwilson]

@rlithgow1

Yeah 7.10 and above seem to be the firmwares that work regardless of plus/non plus

Mine are all MAIN_7.1 with a manufacturer date of 6/6/2017.

[Stephan.J]

When I first started my home automation journey, I went out and purchased the Hubitat and about 15 other zwave devices, one of them was a Schlage zwave lock. After my purchase I spend some time on this forum, it quickly became clear that as far as locks were concerned it was best to go with zigbee. If one was browsing this forum 3-4 years ago, it wouldn't take long to view post after post stating to go with a zigbee locks.

Needless to say, my schlage zwave was problematic. I returned it right away and replaced it with a Schlage BE468, which was basically the same lock but with zigbee instead of zwave. It paired and has worked perfectly ever since.

Today, you don't seem to see as many posts stating that when it comes to locks, always choose zigbee. Not sure if this still holds true, but it helped me many years ago.

[chipworkz]

Just wanted to add another success story. I had a BE469ZP lock at my old house and never had any issues with it. Lock was around 15 feet from the hub. I sold that house and left the lock so I bought another one just a couple of months ago. So, knock on wood, I have had no issues with the new lock as well. When I first installed it, for the first month it was about 10 feet from the hub. I have since moved my hub into my basement so now the lock is about 30 feet from the hub on a different level and it still has worked perfectly. There is no repeater involved either.

[aaiyar]

@chipworkz

There is no repeater involved either.

Does your hub have an external antenna?

[chipworkz]

Nope, all stock.

[chris10]

Just going to add my experience here as more evidence. I have had 2 Schlage BE469s for about 3 years. One that is close to the hub (6ft) in the front door works perfectly and always has. The Laundry door one (25ft from hub) has been problematic for the entire time, I can't actually believe I have persevered with it for so long.

I have tried everything to get reliability, Aeotec 6 and Ring extenders 2 ft from the lock, exclude and re-include, Zwave network fixes but it's just never reliable.

It works sometimes and not others but I can't fathom the logic as to why. It also drains batteries in a month at best. The front door batteries last at least 9 if not 12 months at a time.

Totally frustrating so it's time is up and it sounds like I need to move to zigbee. I don't have many zigbee devices so I am concerned about mesh strength. Do zigbee repeaters exist in the same way as Zwave?

[brianwilson]

I don’t know, but the reliability of zigbee is a pain when moving to another hub. I like that Hubitat can restore z wave associations now.

Then again, just look at this mess.

[danabw]

@chris10

Aeotec 6 and Ring extenders 2 ft from the lock

Just curious - did you lock ever repeat through either of those repeaters?

I think you'd be better off moving the repeaters farther away from the lock (after the lock is paired). From what I've seen here, you want the repeater to be farther away from the device/closer to the hub for best results. Maybe try experimenting w/locations for the repeater. Put it in place, do a repair on the lock and wait a while, may take a week or two to see if the lock will find and use it.

[Ken_Fraleigh]

@danabw

you want the repeater to be farther away from the device/closer to the hub for best results

That has definitely been my experience with Zigbee (I’m not using a lot of Z-wave). The router has to have a strong enough connection to the hub to look attractive to the device. It’s gotta be rich (in lqi) but also considerate of others (decent lqi to the device as well). Sorry, that’s the best I got right now.

[chris10]

I am assuming this chart tells you something about your Z-wave network quality but how do you read it?

Also how did you create it? I'd be super interested to know what device uses what device in the mesh but didn't know there was a way to do it?

[brianwilson]

It’s the z wave topology map on a c7. Red is bad, blue is good.

[danabw]

It's here (as noted, only on C7) at the top of the Z-Wave Details page:

A summary from @bcopeland, lord of Z-Wave for HE (and most of the world, I'll warrant) :

Seeing a bunch of red is not an indication of a bad network.. Especially where battery devices are concerned, because they don't update their neighbors..

The point of this is to give you a quick look at what nodes can "see" what other nodes.. Gives you an idea of how things can route.. It can also be a good tool to decide where to place repeaters.. But with no context of where these nodes are physically and what type of device they are, you can't make a judgment based on this graphic alone..

[jdmm72]

No, you made a change to your built in driver. Mine quit working about 1.5 years ago, yet my hashed together driver from older "community" code works fine with my locks.

HUBITAT needs to fix their built in driver.

It's not a network problem, it's not a router/repeat problem, it's a driver problem.

Schlage Locks - It's the built in driver, stupid

I have updated it. The code is still very cludgy and hacked together, but it is solid and works. As I get more time, I will clean the code up, but for now, it's a working driver. I hope this helps out with others.