August Lock and staircases

I currently have an August smart lock. I live in a one-story condo but am on the second floor. The smart lock works only if I am in the main room. I need it to work while out of state.
I was told it needs a ZigBee repeater between the lock which is 19 steps downstairs & my Alexa hub which is upstairs. The closest outlet is upstairs and at least 25 feet away and not necessarily in view of the August lock. It is straight across but the site line would not be in view of the lock, it would be several feet above the lock because of the staircase. Anyone know of a repeater that would work this far away & up a staircase? Or does the height not matter? Thank you

I don’t think August smartlocks use zigbee, so a zigbee repeater won’t help you. The newest one can work with z-wave. Which generation do you have?

Radio waves travel in all directions, btw, including up/down.

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This forum is for people who are using the Samsung SmartThings home automation platform. Do you have a Samsung SmartThings hub? From your post, it sounds like you might have an echo plus, not a regular echo, and be using that as the home automation controller.

However, I’m confused by the rest of the post, as you said you have an August lock, and the Pro model of that lock uses Z wave, not zigbee. Or if you just have the regular August lock, it uses Bluetooth, but again not zigbee. So a zigbee repeater is never going to help with that lock no matter what home automation controller you are using. :disappointed_relieved:

So I don’t know who told you you need a zigbee repeater for the August lock, but my suggestion would be that you get in touch with August support. They should be able to help you get your lock working remotely, regardless of which model it is. :sunglasses:

http://support.august.com

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You are saying this more and more these days! I wish the registration page had a bold disclaimer saying this forum is for SmartThings customers only.

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Well, it’s not for SmartThings customers only, but it is about the SmartThings(R) platform and devices that connect to it, so often times there just isn’t any way the community can help someone who doesn’t have a SmartThings hub. We just don’t have the information on the other platforms. :disappointed_relieved:

We’ll try and give an answer if we happen to know one, but often it’s just not the best place to get help if you don’t have a SmartThings hub. Plus the fact that the available solutions may be very different for people who do have a SmartThings hub and for those who don’t. (consider, for example, what percentage of answers in the forum these days start with “webcore.” :wink:)

As for why this is coming up more often, I think home automation is becoming more popular, and this particular forum is very active. Combine that with the fact that the SmartThings hub can work with a very wide variety of end devices, and this forum tends to come up towards the top in many google home automation searches. So it’s understandable that people come here, it’s just that we can’t always help.

I think your suggestion of displaying the Samsung name much more prominently would be a very good one. There is a tiny trademark symbol after the “SmartThings” logo at the top of the page, but it’s really hard to notice unless you’re looking for it. The information is in the “about” section for this site, but most people won’t read that before they post questions.

https://www.smartthings.com/about

So I think everyone in this community is happy to help if they can, it’s just that this isn’t a general “smart things” forum. It’s a forum specific to “SmartThings (R)” (no space), which is a division of Samsung. So this just isn’t always the best place to get an answer if you aren’t using that particular platform.

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Although in this case, the OP seems to be confused about a very basic question related to home automation in general, ie which wireless protocols the various devices in his or her home support.

We can probably handle that much at least :sunglasses:

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While that’s true, the amount of education that someone who’s going to use a full featured multiprotocol system like SmartThings is very different than someone who has, say, only a regular echo, a regular August lock, and just wanted to be able to use the August lock when they are away from home. :wink:

In the second case, all they need to do is get the August bridge (not a zigbee bridge, a device specific to the August lock) and they’re done. They will have out of building access to their August lock. :sunglasses:

So that’s why I suggested they get in touch with August support who can walk them through the various options for the lock they already own depending on what features they want to use. They may not need to learn anything about any of the protocols, just buy one specific device.

On the other hand, someone who is using a home automation hub does need to become familiar with the different types of protocols if only to make sure they get devices that will work with their system.

I’m certainly not opposed to someone learning more about zigbee versus Z wave, I’m just saying that may not be what the OP was looking for. Choice is good, including in the level of education desired. :thinking:

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Thank you all for trying to assist. I had been in touch with August multiple times and had failed to mention in my post that their Bridge must be 10 feet away from the lock and would not work in this scenario. I was thinking of trying other automated locks that needed bridges that could be further away from my door & one level up near the Hub. By doing this I would have to have a repeater. My apologies, I should not have posted here and although I appreciate everyone’s assistance I hate to have caused any disturbance. I will figure things out on my own. Cheers everybody

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Which hub are you using?

A standard Echo is not a hub, only the “echo plus” model is, and then that can only work with the zigbee locks which are listed as compatible with it.

If you don’t have an echo plus, don’t worry about it – – you can get a different home automation hub to work with a different lock, such as wink or smartthings.

That said, before we abandon the idea of the lock that you already have, it uses Bluetooth to connect to its own August bridge, and that should give you a range of 10 m, not 10 feet. For safety’s sake let’s say 25 feet. And that could be in any direction, including upstairs on the next floor. :sunglasses:. (Essentially if you can use the phone app without the bridge to control the lock from a specific position, the bridge should also be able to control it from that position.)

Do you not have anywhere to plug that bridge in that would be within 25 feet of the lock?