Hello,
Me and some of my family have been running a short term rental on a few OTAs for the last year. I am looking for a smart lock that will meet my criteria for our property. I have already purchased a smart lock last year but I have had less than stellar results with it after doing some research before purchasing it but have had less than stellar results with it.
Generally, the list of criteria is as follows to meet the needs of our situation:
1. Has broad support by PMS or channel manager software. We only had one property to manage this last year but that is likely to change soon and as such I would like to be able to have options when I shop for that. Preferably I do not want to pay a separate fee for a dedicated service like an access control software to handle a few locks. It can not be locked into a particular OTA either (i.e. August).
2. Has a PIN; I don't really want to have a lock that can only be unlocked by having a smart phone.
3. Has a physical override like a key in case the electronic lock fails so someone can get in without breaking a window or something.
At the moment I have a Schlage Connect lock which integrates itself with a zwave hub. I originally purchased the zwave version as I figured it would be easier to interface with it by using a hub that has an API to access but it seems most software just directly interfaces with wifi locks (via a bot?) rather than interfacing with a hub. The hub that I purchased (a hubitat) also never wants to talk to the locks either. It seems you need a few repeater devices for a healthy zwave network because the locks like to fall asleep to save battery life or something. Either way the end result is that the locks will never let me change the PINs which defeats the whole purpose of having them. Apparently Smartthing hubs had a third party extension utilizing its API but purportedly the API was discontinued and therefore these extensions no longer work.
Another problem plagues the device (and why I want a device that has a key override) is that the lock will randomly stop working whenever it feels like. The fix is simple; re-seating the battery pack will allow it to function again for some bizarre reason. This still causes an issue that you have to send someone out and fix it and the only saving grace was the fact that you can still unlock it with a key. I complained to the warranty people at Schlage and they sent me a new lock with little hassle (which is awesome) but that one has the same issue.
The last point is the reason I am hesitant to purchase a Schlage Encode (the Wi-Fi variety as apposed to zwave). If anyone else has decent experience I might consider it as it seems a number of PMS support it for automated lock generation but if I keep having to have someone come out and fix it I don't know if I want to bother with it.
The other candidate I was considering was the Yale Assure line but a number of people have left less than great reviews on that lock as well. It does however seem to be saturated with people dissatisfied with the Yale / August system and not the lock itself. I was wondering if anyone had experience with this lock.
Apologies for the rambling post and thank you for any suggestions or advice.
P.S. Is this the right subforum for this?
