I’m ready to buy a smart lock and have narrowed it down to the Kwikset 914 and the 916. I suppose the other option is the Schlage Century but for some reason I’ve leaned towards the Kwikset.
As far as I can tell, the 914 and 916 are the same, except the 916 is touchscreen and has the implantation of the two random digits before entering the code to prevent fingerprint guesses. To me, that’s not worth the premium in price and i prefer buttons that works with gloves on and without “waking up” the screen.
I just saw the 914 for ~$147 on Amazon, which I missed but will grab it once it goes down again if people can recommend the lock.
I have one of the Schlage Camelot units, so I can’t tell you anything about the Kwiksets. But I can tell you that having a keypad-operated deadbolt finally saved my bacon this morning, and pretty much paid for itself. I always exit through the garage, and lock the kitchen<->garage door behind me by manually turning the lock on the inside knob before closing the door. I was in more of a hurry than usual this morning and not going through my mental check-list like I should have and realized that I’d left my wallet and keys sitting on the kitchen island…just as I heard the door click shut behind me.
I can only imagine the neighbors shaking their heads as I walked around from my rear-entry garage to my front door and punched in a code to let myself back in.
That’s something I’ve seen on a few review/forums is the battery levels being widely different per user. From what I gather, lower battery life is expected if it’s constantly monitored by a ST integration. I imagine the people claiming a year on batteries only have it being used as a simple door lock and aren’t using the z-wave.
What’s your Schlage’s battery life like and are you integrating it with ST? Also, why did you go with the Camelot vs the Century? Looks?
I’ve got the 910. I always have Eneloop’s charged and ready. Every 6 months I replace the ones in the lock. It’s usually down to 40-50% at that time. But I notice the lock gets weaker and slower, so this just keeps things snappy. Never need to worry about dead locks this way either!
[quote=“Kayak83, post:3, topic:74264”]That’s something I’ve seen on a few review/forums is the battery levels being widely different per user. From what I gather, lower battery life is expected if it’s constantly monitored by a ST integration. I imagine the people claiming a year on batteries only have it being used as a simple door lock and aren’t using the z-wave.
What’s your Schlage’s battery life like and are you integrating it with ST?[/quote]
The battery level notifications in my log are currently vascilating between 98% and 99%. But I’ve only had the lock installed for about 2 months, and we rarely ever use the motor to lock/unlock the door (except when I do something stupid, like this morning, or when one of the kids comes to visit)…so my experience is probably not going to be of much value there. The only reason I recommended keeping an eye on the batteries was so that you know they’ve got juice in the event that you do what I did today.
Yep. The wife preferred the appearance of the Camelot series. 'Nuff said.
I have a 914. I was debating on the 914 vs 916 as well, but went with the 914 because I don’t want to deal with a touchscreen possibly going out or being broken at some point. I do use my touch numbers to unlock the door more often than I actually thought I would.
Usually, I use the phone to unlock it before I get out of the car (this way I can carry everything in a single trip).
I haven’t had my lock very long (a couple months), but do plan on actively replacing my eneloops before they get too low.
What’s your setup to do that? Just using the kwikset app or through an routine/automation?
I think ideally I’d want to have a “goodnight” routine setup where I tell Alexa goodnight and my front door locks along with turning off the lights. Also would want my lights to turn on when the door is unlocked and off when it’s locked.
@Kayak83 - I have had the Schlage Century for about 2 years now and love it. I have read that it is the safest lock against break-ins compared to the various other connected locks but I would recommend doing some research yourself as these reports can sometimes swing one way or the other…
My batteries last a really long time however I did have one case early on where they were dead in a week however it turned out it was something to do with how it was set up. You also have to ensure the lock is close enough to the hub or appropriate repeaters so as to minimize battery consumption regardless of brand/model you pick.
I do not like actual white buttons on locks as I’ve seen some get dirty thus giving away the most used ones… plus it just looks bad once dirty. Shiny touchscreens could give away the key code with finger smudges, and that is why the touchpad on the Schlage is not shiny. I have never wiped it clean and it looks perfect after two years. We always use the code to open our door, and 1/3 of the times we let the HA close it after 5 minutes so the lock gets a good amount of usage with no issue at all. The two extra digits on the 916 are likely to spread the smudges around to extra digits and also to trick anyone looking behind you. What I did not like about the Kwiksets I tried at Home Depot/Lowes was the time delay to just activate the screen… way too long for me especially when compared to none for the Schlage.
I have the Kwikset 914 and am really enjoying it though it did take some figuring out and I’m still contemplating getting RBoy Apps to take better advantage of having a electronic lock. I’m fairly new to ST so I’m definitely running into a bit of a learning curve. However, it is extremely useful and, even though we’re currently in Michigan winter, I’ve had no issues with either the batteries or the lock not functioning on me. Contemplating getting additional ones for the backdoor and the garage as well now as they’re used more often than the front door but as an earlier person noted, having it on the front has saved us a few times already (my other half habitually forgets his house key, wallet, phone, etc. . . )
I would have you stir clear of anything Kwikset SmartKey re-key technology… it gets defeated literally in just a few seconds. For what it’s worth Schlage Connect series is spec ANSI Grade 1 Highest Residential Security
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RBoy
(www.rboyapps.com - Making SmartThings Easy!)
15
One of the things to look out for in Kwikset locks is that they don’t allow remote configuration of options (it’s done via dip switches). Here’s a little table of feature comparison I whipped up to compare different locks:
I have both the 914 and 916. My garage/utility entrance 914 failed after 18 months so I tried the 916. The touch screen really sucks compared to the keypad. Luckily we almost never have to manually unlock that lock thanks to well, automation. But when we do, the extra few seconds feels like a major first world problem.
Except for the failed lock which was quirky from day one when it arrived, the Kwiksets have been fine.
And Kwikset fixed their smartkey vulnerability years ago. Yet the locksmiths still rant on to protect their business.
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RBoy
(www.rboyapps.com - Making SmartThings Easy!)
17
Battery life can drastically vary based on
Usage (pretty obvious)
Polling from ST (this can be controlled with a good DH)
Excessive remote programming
Individual locks / firmware (I’ll come back to this in a moment)
The battery thresholds also vary from lock type, e.g. Schlage deadbolt locks (e.g. BE469) tend to die around 70% where as electronic locks like the FE599 can go on till about 50% usage.
Having said that coming to my point 4 above, I have 2 EXACT same FE599 locks from Schlage. One of them lasts for about 6-8months on a set of batteries and the other only 4-6 months. The BEST part is the lock that lasts only 4-6 months ISN’T even used and is the closest to the hub of all the locks! Just locks quirks, can’t explain it. The firmware is identical, setup etc etc. It’s just a bad piece.
I prefer Schlage deadbolt locks as they’re solid and super stable. Non deadbolts I think Yale are excellent options with a decent battery life, in some cases maybe even better than Schlage (upto 14 months I’ve heard)
The youtube journey I went down while researching really was a big fat mess. BUT at least people are informed that nothing is perfectly secure. Really, if you own a kwikset or schlage deadbolt already, they’re susceptible to the same brute force tactics. Also, a swift kick still is the preferred method by most intruders that are desperate. But I digress…
Interesting, I wrongly assumed they’d be dead at 0%?! Now i know why people complain that they died “unexpectedly.” Again, I use rechargeable and don’t mind swapping when necessary. Luckily, I just installed a GE smart switch about 5’ away from the front door, so I blindly stumbled on creating a repeater when I didn’t even know I needed it! lol
I believe Schlage is the highest rated big box store consumer brand. And I see a lot of locksmith’s from my research that recommend their commercial products. Leaning towards the Camelot now…Still waiting on that price drop again!
RBoy
(www.rboyapps.com - Making SmartThings Easy!)
19
Part of the reason is the way batteries work. Standard alkaline batteries have a higher voltage discharge curve then say lithium batteries. So actually when the battery level is down to say 70% it’s running low “power”, when I say power I mean the ability to draw amps from the battery. Now consider a deadbolt, it has a pretty heavy duty motor that draws a lot of power. As a alkaline battery at 70% when the motor tries to “draw” that enormous amount of power/amps from the battery the voltage takes a tank and this causes the electronics to shutdown the lock. On the slip side a FE599 which is a magnetic actuator lock needs far fewer amps to achieve a lock/unlock hence it can go onto about 50% when finally the magnetic draw on the actuator causes the voltage to drop and shutdown the lock.
This is one the reasons we wrote this SmartApp with a configurable low battery warning and groups so that users can setup thresholds for different devices and we’ve even recommended a few
There is ONE easy solution to this, use 1.7v Lithium batteries (like Blink camera does), lithium batteries are FAR more stable/flatter in their voltage curves and this stability allows the devices to maximize the use of the batteries. So if you were to run your locks on a lithium battery you’ll find that the batteries last much longer and you can use them till they are almost depleted because of the flatter voltage curves. See this comparison I posted about Alkaline vs Lithium (note however that the DH would need to be recalibrated to accurately report the battery levels for lithium)
I had the same problem once with a thermostat that kept dying with my rechargeables. Learned the hard way that rechargeable voltage delivery is slightly less than some devices need.
Awesome! Love this community so far. Incredibly helpful.
I JUST ordered a Blink camera yesterday actually so this is great info. So much for my Eneloop’s huh?
