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Review: Aqara's U100 Smart Lock Offers Home Key Support, Fingerprint Unlocking and More

Built my own homekit lock for less than half the price.
About €60 for an electric lock and €12 for a shelly 1
Installed custom firmware on the shelly and...voila, homekit support.

This all, wait for it....more than 2 years ago.

S22U.jpg
shelly1.png
 
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  • Wow
Reactions: MasterControlProgram
I trust Zigbee less than Thread. I'd rather my smart lock connect directly to my HomePod mini and Apple TV securely using Apple's encryption systems and authorization.
 
tubedogg said:
That's what I want, a lock which reads out the numbers to unlock my house as I press buttons on the keypad. ??? (that's what it sounded like from the article anyway)

Also you didn't say whether you bought this item yourself, got a review unit, or what, which is pretty important for credibility.
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It does not read out the numbers as you press them, lol.
 
Looking at the photos in the article all a thief would have to do to is break glass, walk thru door.

Not exactly fool proof.
 
bunty said:
Just a wild guess for the future: "This is the lockpicking lawyer and what I have for you today is..."

Then they proceed to grab a neodymium magnet...
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Yeah.

Anyone who has ever watched a few of LPL's videos knows how pathetic all these consumer products are. The article says: "A skilled lockpicker can get it open in a few minutes" but I'd take the under on that if LPL has a try.
 
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Bass Ackwards said:
I dunno, my august lock is over 5 years old and has reliably unlocked with my phone in my pocket as I approach my door from day one. I don't see the advantage of upgrading to these apple approved devices where I have to take my phone out of my pocket each time, might as well just be using a regular key at that point (or with this particular lock, seems like just using the fingerprint sensor would be quicker/easier).
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For August to auto unlock, you have to grant the app Location access “Always”, and it burns in the background for hours. I checked my battery history and was 12% for that feature alone. Geofencing is crummy solution compared to HomeKey.
 
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hortod1 said:
Looking at the photos in the article all a thief would have to do to is break glass, walk thru door.

Not exactly fool proof.
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That’s all anybody has to do. A dude with a sledge hammer is gonna open your door. These things are meant to discourage casual thieves, not prevent entry.
 
jclo said:
I think you can only connect to Bluetooth this way, and the fingerprint sensor doesn't work. For me, the fingerprint sensor is probably the quickest way to unlock even compared to Home Key.
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you can add fingerprints to the unit and all my family members been using the fingerprint sensor. It does not require Aqara hub for any of the built-in functions or HomeKit/HomeKey function at all. Aqara hubs are only required for google home and Amazon Alexa integration or accessing the lock when away from home via Aqara app. (which, already possible with apple home integration so I didn't even buy any Aqara hub)
 
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mdelvecchio said:
For August to auto unlock, you have to grant the app Location access “Always”, and it burns in the background for hours. I checked my battery history and was 12% for that feature alone. Geofencing is crummy solution compared to HomeKey.
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My understanding is geofencing is setup specifically to avoid the battery drain of apps that use location. I can't explain the differing numbers, but I have several apps with location always on that use geofencing (August, Hue, IFTTT, Sensibo) and only Sensibo even registers a usage number (1%), all the others are less than 1%.
 
I remember back when you needed a jailbreak for smart locks to work with your iPhone. We've come a long way since then. I still miss Jobs though, no one at Apple has his level of charisma (or his level of intensity and rage for that matter).
 
mdelvecchio said:
For August to auto unlock, you have to grant the app Location access “Always”, and it burns in the background for hours. I checked my battery history and was 12% for that feature alone. Geofencing is crummy solution compared to HomeKey.
Click to expand...
Dang, I forgot about the battery history feature. Word Chums took up over 50% of my battery last week, it doesn't even have background activity turned on, maybe I should give the game a rest!
 
Bass Ackwards said:
My understanding is geofencing is setup specifically to avoid the battery drain of apps that use location. I can't explain the differing numbers, but I have several apps with location always on that use geofencing (August, Hue, IFTTT, Sensibo) and only Sensibo even registers a usage number (1%), all the others are less than 1%.
Click to expand...
I don’t think so. A geofence is a defined area to trigger an action, but has nothing to do with battery consumption in itself. The usage of energy is the routine GPS pinging to see where you are currently. e.g., “Am I home yet? No. Am I home yet? No. Am I home yet? Yes! Unlock!” GPS hits costs energy.
 
“There are a couple of NFC keyfobs that come with the U100 in case you need to give a key to someone”

Mine didn’t come with any nfc fobs? Anyone else get them?
 
mdelvecchio said:
I don’t think so. A geofence is a defined area to trigger an action, but has nothing to do with battery consumption in itself. The usage of energy is the routine GPS pinging to see where you are currently. e.g., “Am I home yet? No. Am I home yet? No. Am I home yet? Yes! Unlock!” GPS hits costs energy.
Click to expand...
Apps utilizing location data for geofencing are doing it in the background. They aren't doing separate, independent GPS pings, they're just polling the phone data that's already there (your phone is constantly updating its location). Devices using geofencing don't burn battery through location data, but by how active they are based on that data. Since most actions are simple searching for a connection and then on or off, that activity should be minimal. A quick google search seems to confirm battery drain on these kind of apps is negligible, and like I say, that's reflected in the multiple devices I have that use geofencing. I imagine there are some security improvements in using NFC vs the bluetooth my August uses to unlock, but beyond that I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree that taking your phone out to physically touch the lock is an improvement.
 
As the saying goes in the tech industry, most tech engineers, designers, product people will never use smart home devices. Because they know how data will be used and abused by these companies and how unreliable they are if they need to connect to the internet. All it takes sometimes is for a company to go bankrupt and suddenly, you lose access to something in your house or even worse, get locked out of your house.
 
idrewuk said:
Where are we supposed to plug in all of these hubs?!?
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Outlets, preferably.

I already have the Aqara hub due to using their (very excellent) water sensors all over my house. I’m growing tired of replacing the (weird, hard to find) battery in my August lock every month… maybe I’ll pick this up!
 
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