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    Smart locks recommendation

    In the market for 6 (six) smart locks that would be going to external doors as far as 250 ft (max) apart from each other.

    WiFi locks sound good but they are eating trough batteries quickly. Tried August WiFi lock which was churning batteries in 2 months.

    Hate Z-wave and removed everything Zwave from my home. So Zwave is not an option either.

    Provided the above restrictions can someone recommend decent smart lock that uses RF and works with WiFi gateway. If I put the gateway in the middle than the RF range needs to be about 125 ft. (I do have Sonoff RF gateways already for my motion sensors but it sounds too good to be true to find a lock that is compatible). Of course the protocol must be open so that I can integrate it with HS4.

    Thanks and Happy New Year

    Puma




    #2
    You've pretty much eliminated all consumer grade available automated locks. I just installed my second Schlage Connect Camelot Touchscreen Electronic Deadbolt and really like them but they are Z-Wave and that distance isn't going to work well with Z-Wave devices.
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      #3
      Originally posted by puma View Post
      In the market for 6 (six) smart locks that would be going to external doors as far as 250 ft (max) apart from each other.

      WiFi locks sound good but they are eating trough batteries quickly. Tried August WiFi lock which was churning batteries in 2 months.

      Hate Z-wave and removed everything Zwave from my home. So Zwave is not an option either.


      First, the distance of the doors from each other is irrelevant. What's important is the distance of each door from a central gateway since that is what will be communicating with each lock. The locks will not be communicating with each other.

      And as you already noted, residential WiFi is the worst transmission platform battery powered devices. Zigbee and Zwave were designed specifically for secure, low power battery communications. Most major lock manufacturers now design locks for both Zigbee and Zwave. Even if you hate Zwave or Zigbee, you could still buy the locks that work with one of those protocols, then simply buy wall outlet repeaters to setup a mesh network for the locks. No rewiring necessary.

      My Schlage Zwave locks last 6 to 12 months on a fresh set of batteries and I have zero problems with local or HS4 controlled operations.

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        #4
        Sounds like you have a big house. If so, then you will need to scale accordingly! You might need to have multiple z-wave or zigbee hubs and design accordingly.

        Did you try setting up a test bed to confirm functionality when some of these devices aren't across the house? Remember that you are dealing with RF technology which is prone to signal/noise issues. Don't even talk to me about how much category wire a good Wifi network needs in a house like yours. The key is to start small and scale up.

        Also keep in mind that firmware issues with the locks are real and you may need to troubleshoot.

        You do not want anything which requires a cloud infrastructure.
        HomeSeer 2, HomeSeer 3, Allonis myServer, Amazon Alexa Dots, ELK M1G, ISY 994i, HomeKit, BlueIris, and 6 "4k" Cameras using NVR, and integration between all of these systems. Home Automation since 1980.

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          #5
          Originally posted by TC1 View Post

          First, the distance of the doors from each other is irrelevant. What's important is the distance of each door from a central gateway since that is what will be communicating with each lock. The locks will not be communicating with each other.
          Yes, I'm well aware of that. My other estimate of 125 ft max from a centrally located gateway to the farthest lock would be more appropriate.

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            #6
            Originally posted by puma View Post

            Yes, I'm well aware of that. My other estimate of 125 ft max from a centrally located gateway to the farthest lock would be more appropriate.


            125 feet is a long way for RF technology. Like I said before, create test environment with equipment much closer, and then scale up.
            HomeSeer 2, HomeSeer 3, Allonis myServer, Amazon Alexa Dots, ELK M1G, ISY 994i, HomeKit, BlueIris, and 6 "4k" Cameras using NVR, and integration between all of these systems. Home Automation since 1980.

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              #7
              Originally posted by Krumpy View Post



              125 feet is a long way for RF technology. Like I said before, create test environment with equipment much closer, and then scale up.
              It's no problem for a properly designed wireless network, whether it's Z-wave, Zigbee, or WiFi. My Z-wave network extends from the center of my house to my detached garage on the back of my property. Having Z-wave Plus routing devices (ie, wall dimmers) inside both structures near exterior facing walls allows this to happen. As you imply, proper planning is key.

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                #8
                For humor... And out of what are the walls in the house made of? Concrete or drywall, or metal studs? You get my point that some houses are made different than others which have an impact of their signal traversing through the walls.

                I am about to go into a new house and will migrate from the existing house (with very little z-wave) to all z-wave in the new house. It will be a interesting venture. Right now in the existing house I have 13 year old Insteon which I am happy to sunset as they most of the devices are starting to die off one by one.

                Not sure if Puma's house is one of the 15 million dollar super structures as I see down by Marco Island in SW Florida. If so, then I certainly would not be surprised to hear of RF issues with z-wave and the like.

                All of this needs to be scaled properly. Which takes a lot of time which I presume most residential DYI'ers do not venture into.

                I will agree though that software/hardware companies can do more to design technology to be more resilient and verbose in terms of what the potential problem is. They mainly just through some error which no one can figure out root cause. How in the heck is one able to resolve an issue if they don't know what the correct root cause of an issue is.

                And they want cars to drive themselves... Yeah, right.
                HomeSeer 2, HomeSeer 3, Allonis myServer, Amazon Alexa Dots, ELK M1G, ISY 994i, HomeKit, BlueIris, and 6 "4k" Cameras using NVR, and integration between all of these systems. Home Automation since 1980.

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                  #9
                  Originally posted by Krumpy View Post
                  They mainly just through some error which no one can figure out root cause. How in the heck is one able to resolve an issue if they don't know what the correct root cause of an issue is.
                  Bingo. Most folks who come into these forums trashing <insert technology> are usually doing so because they don't understand how it works. And they are so determined to hold onto a developed bias that they really don't want to engage in understanding what might have went wrong.

                  It's like me saying I had a Honda car once, the engine seized, so Honda's suck. But I left out the part where I never changed the oil... oh, was I suppose to do that?

                  The big difference in that analogy is that cars are in fact mainstream consumer items after 100+ years, with every conceivable warning and use-case documented in their manuals, ie, "change the oil... or else!" But home automation is FAR from being mainstream, despite what any company advertises. For simple stuff where privacy or security of data is no big deal then sure one can turn to all the Alexa and Google enabled stuff (which by the way is Zigbee based mesh network) but then one is also dependent on having an Internet connection.

                  Using Homeseer and a purpose built wireless network like Z-wave or Zigbee is a different paradigm because you no longer have to depend on an outside Internet connection to do automation (why many of us choice this platform). And if your Wifi network in your house goes down, your automation still works. And even if every room in your house is a Faraday cage, there ways of designing around that obstacle.

                  Just my 2-cents.

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                    #10
                    125' seems like a really big house. An important aspect is also through how many walls you are going and what material and thickness those walls are made off. As for repeaters, it is my understanding that the locks use a secure protocol (S2) and only repeaters that support that protocol can repeat it. So a z-wave light switch most likely cannot repeat the signal. I might be wrong on that but you should research that. Regarding the protocol, I haven't seen any locks that use anything different than z-wave, WiFi or Zigbeee. I suspect you will have to choose one of those three. Again, I could be wrong but if there is anything else it is probably quite special and might cause problems in the future (when you have to replace a lock, get support for controlling them through HS, etc).

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