Mysterious “Lock was unlocked electronically”

Devices & Integrations
1

Hello,
I have a SmartThings capable Zwave based Kwikset SmartCode 916 Lock and have twice received a random notification that the “lock was unlocked electronically” and find the door unlocked. No one in my household did the unlocking (and no one else should have access to unlock it remotely).

Any suggestions on troubleshooting this? …A Zwave vulnerablity? A smartthings bug? A vulnerability in the rboy device handler? …anyway to figure out what triggered the opening? I have the eventlog but it’s greek to me.

2

I’m sure that’s unnerving. First step would be to contact support as soon as possible. They can see things from their side that we can’t as regular customers.

https://support.smartthings.com/hc/en-us

BTW, The most common reason for a lock to unlock unexpectedly is because you have a rule set up that the door unlocks when you arrive home and whatever the device is that you are using as a presence indicator unexpectedly goes off power, which SmartThings will interpret as it going out of range. Then when it comes back on power it is perceived as arriving again.

Alternatively, if the hub itself reboots, the reconnection may be perceived as an arrival event.

But again, support should be able to track down if something like that happened at the time.

Also, since you have paid for @rboy 's support with your license for that smart app, you should get in touch with him to see if there’s any other information he might be able to provide.

2 Likes
3

Thanks for the quick reply. I submitted an email inquiry to smartthings for support using their online form. .

I’ve never had any rules for automatically unlocking the door. …I do have rules for automatically locking.

We’ll see what they say.

4

To follow up on JD’s note, if the lock unlocked due to a command received from the SmartThings hub it will have a device event history. You can open the IDE, click on My devices, open your device and click on Event List and you’ll see the history of which app sent the command to the device. It also has the app unique id which can help you track down the app along with date/time stamps.

2 Likes
5

Do you have a sensor that detects if your door is open or close? I believe either the Rboy smartapp or dth has an option to automatically unlock the door if it locked while the door is open. I’ve had a faulty sensor cause my door to unlock even though my door was physically closed. But I think it happened shortly after I locked it…but I was already away from the house and didn’t notice.

3 Likes
6

Looking at the event log there does not seem to be any trigger preceding the status change of the lock to unlocked. No other devices or apps were logged at that time period. So my take is that this is a lock/Zwave issue and not a hub/smartthings issue. …still waiting for a reply from Smartthings support though.

Here is the event with IDs x’d out .
Front Door Lock lock is unlocked
Name Value
archivable true
date 2017-10-05 7:02:20.992 PM EDT (2017-10-05T23:02:20.992Z)
description Front Door Lock lock is unlocked
deviceId xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
deviceTypeId xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
displayed true
eventSource DEVICE
groupId xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
hubId xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
id xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
isStateChange true
isVirtualHub false
linkText Front Door Lock
locationId xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
name lock
rawDescription zw device: 04, command: 9881, payload: 00 62 03 00 00 02 FE FE
translatable false
unixTime 1507244540992
value unlocked
viewed false

7

Just found this reply in my email from smartthings saying both that the command did not come from the hub and that I should contact the manufacturer, but also saying that because I have uncertified integrations (I assume the are talking about the rboyapps) that I should contact them. I assume that any event coming from an uncertified integration would still be logged.

Cecile L. (SmartThings)
Oct 6, 9:48 AM MST

Good morning,

Thank you so much for reaching out to us here at SmartThings.

I am however so sorry for the trouble you are experiencing.

Thank you for sending the logs.

I investigated your account along with a Technical Lead. Our SmartThings Hub or system did not send nor authorize any such commands. At that time yesterday (7:02pm), we say the event of the lock unlocking but not one of our commands.

What we saw is that you have a lot of various uncertified custom integrations so it is hard to say where the issue stems from.

We recommend getting in touch with the lock manufacturer or the developers of the integrations you have in place.

I am sorry we do not have answers but seeing the detailed events from the logs, there is no bug or nothing faulty on our end. Especially a random unlocking, no way!

I hope the various parties you contact can help.

All that said, please keep us posted or let us know if you have any other questions or concerns. You can also always check our awesome website: Samsung SmartThings

Warmest and kindest regards,

Cecile
Support Technician

8

I took a look and there isn’t an unlock command generated from SmartThings. There is a poll event a second before the report of being unlocked from the device.

So the lock was polled for its status by SmartThings and the lock itself reported back that it was unlocked. Do you know if the lock was actually unlocked?

I am hesitant to put the blame on the device handler but it could be an issue with the lock itself if it’s reporting the wrong state.

3 Likes
9

Thanks for checking. The lock was in the unlocked position when I checked it a few seconds after I got the notification. It then auto-locked 10 minutes later via the RBoys SmartApp setting.

10

Did you get to the bottom of this issue ? I just had the same behavior and I am not sure if it’s worth pursuing it. Thanks !

11

It hasn’t happened since and I haven’t changed anything, except making sure my lock related apps were up to date.

The reply I got from Smartthings was:

“I investigated your account along with a Technical Lead. Our SmartThings Hub or system did not send nor authorize any such commands. At that time yesterday (7:02pm), we saw the event of the lock unlocking but not one of our commands.

What we saw is that you have a lot of various uncertified custom integrations so it is hard to say where the issue stems from.

We recommend getting in touch with the lock manufacturer or the developers of the integrations you have in place.”

I don’t have any other system with access to that lock except an IFFFT command to record video whenever it is unlocked. I did email Kwikset about the issue but never for a reply and forgot all about it until now.

-mm

12

Sorry to revive such an old thread. I just received the same notification “lock was unlocked electronically”. I have a Schlage lock and also RBoys installed. This is the first time I received this message.
Anyone ever figure out where the message came from and why?

13

Some reasons that have been observed:

  1. Delayed notifications, have seen instances where the notification came a few hours later (extreme case) or a few minutes later. The former could be a something just stuck in the platform (extremely rare) or the latter could be a slow mesh
  2. Quite likely: Many locks, especially the Schlage BE468/469 series are VERY sensitive to alignment. If the deadbolt even “touches”, scrapes the door jamb or isn’t able to extend fully it will retract itself and send an unlocked or jammed messages (depending on the situation)
  3. Bad lock calibration (see manual to recalibrate lock)
  4. Bad lock sensor (unlikely but have seen a one or two cases in the past few years)

If the platform initiated the event you can trace it from the detailed event log as Brad had pointed out. If it came from an SmartApp, VERY simple to identify as it’ll log it in the Recently tab of the Classic ST app lock device page with the name of the SmartApp. Most of the time it’s initiated from the locks itself to the reasons mentioned above.