I’ve been using an August Pro connected to ST for about a year now without any problems. However, within the last two weeks, the August has stopped responding consistently to ST. If I click “Unlock” on ST, it shows that it’s sending the command but the door never responds or unlocks.
It works sometimes, but I really can’t get it to respond consistently. Mostly it locks fairly consistently, but not 100% reliably, either. This is very frustrating.
The live log on the graph page isn’t helpful at all (it just says “[DTH] Executing unlock() for device Front Door”). I tried changing the DTH from “Z-Wave Lock” to “Z-Wave Lock without code” to see if that helped, and it doesn’t either. I shot off emails to both August and ST support but no responses yet. Anyone know what I can do?
I’ve started seeing this suddenly as well. My August Pro has been as reliable as Gibraltar since day 1 - but in the last 7 days or so it’s just decided to stop responding to SmartThings via z-wave. Manual operation is fine, and operation directly via the August app still works every time, but SmartThings consistently thinks it sent the lock commands which it never follows. I can see in my hub events that my “unlock on arrive” commands are running as programmed, but the lock doesn’t actuate. Running a lock/unlock from SmartThings manually sometimes works, most times doesn’t.
For example - if the lock is ‘LOCKED’ and I send an UNLOCK command, it will show ‘UNLOCKING’ for a time and then go back to LOCKED
Anyone? There are tons of other z-wave devices within range of the lock that aren’t having any communication problems and thus the mesh should be strong.
So after some observation, here’s what I think may be happening:
Whenever my August starts doing this, the battery starts getting low within a month or so. My theory is that when the battery starts getting below a certain threshold on the August, it starts being more conservative about listening for Z-Wave and not staying awake to listen for Z-Wave commands. Activating the lock manually or through the August app “wakes” it, and then it will listen for Z-Wave for a while, but it goes into power saving mode and then starts ignoring Z-Wave commands again.
It goes away with fresh batteries, and this has happened somewhat consistently with my last three battery changes. I’m not sure how to test and prove this out, though. I don’t know if the August has an API with logging but the app itself has no real reporting apparent, and August support was very, very little help.
Tagging @rboy , he is an expert on locks and may know more.
RBoy
(www.rboyapps.com - Making SmartThings Easy!)
11
That’s a common phenomena with most locks and I see it happen with Schlage, Kwikset and other brands also. A Better long-term solution would be to add a buffering device like a repeater within about 20 feet of the lock.
This is one the reasons we recommend changing the battery at 50% of electronic latching locks and 75% for deadbolt locks:
Hey guys, great updates here. I’ve also observed the same thing where it seems like any “manual” interaction with the lock will make it start responding to SmartThings/z-wave again. This can be a manual actuation by hand, using the August app directly, or even using HomeKit. Once I do one of those things, the z-wave actions work properly for a time.
I can absolutely accept the proposed notion of power-saving making it be more conservative; I can’t remember the last time I replaced the batteries in the lock. But August isn’t alerting me about power levels and the ST DTH shows it as “95%” (lol… obviously inaccurate)
Will pop some new AAs in there and see if it helps…
FWIW, like I mentioned - I have several GE z-wave wall switches within just a few inches of the lock, so assuming they all function as repeaters (my understanding is that they do) the signal should be very, very strong.
OK - fresh batteries didn’t help. I installed them and waited about 3 hours for the lock to “settle”, then tested it directly via z-wave without any other interaction first. No dice, didn’t operate. Kept doing the same as above - would switch to “UNLOCKING” and then go back to “LOCKED”
Twisted the lock by hand to retrieve a package from my porch and the status updated to UNLOCKED in SmartThings and then it locked no problem via z-wave.
And battery reporting is weird. For a split second it showed 92%, then 84% then back to 100% battery to which it normally reads until the battery is dead.
So, I guess the big question is how to get any visibility from the ST team or August on this issue. @RBoy you’re the most experienced in the thread, any tips on that?
I know there have been a couple of Hub FW updates as well as August FW updates in the last couple of months. I don’t have any data points to correlate those updates to this new behavior, but maybe?
RBoy
(www.rboyapps.com - Making SmartThings Easy!)
20
Generally today’s been tough with locks for some readon. Not sure what’s going on but many of the Yale and Schlage locks in our labs are having issues with events not reaching the hub or through to the platform. I also noticed a timeouts on the platform, so it may be running slow which may be causing issues.
Try rebooting the hub, power cycling the hubs and locks and doing a Z-Wave repair.
I assume you mean that the commands “jam up” and not the mechanism itself?