rossggg

rgw1469 said:

sbdude said:

rgw1469 said:

Unfortunately, bluetooth transport is a death sentence for smart devices. You will not be able to reliably trust this with automations and it will more often have a big red "No Response" label under it in the Home app.

I've never had a single "no response" issue with my level lock and homekit. First generation level lock, no less. I've only had no response issues with older "smart switches" using wifi, especially from ihome.

I'm happy for you but bluetooth reliability - or lack thereof - with smart devices is a bright red line for me. They should make a thread enabled version of this product that falls back to bluetooth if there is no thread router nearby. 

While I do hope they update their product line with Thread in the future, I will chime in too that my first-gen Level Bolt is one of the most reliable accessories in my entire HomeKit setup.  If you ensure there is an AppleTV or HomePod device within range of the lock, it will work instantly and reliably whenever you go to control it.  I do have some thread accessories that get better range, as far as not needing to be near a HomeKit Hub, but they aren't particularly reliable and are slow to respond to commands or provide status updates.

pulseimages said:

I always groan when some app opens Apple Maps instead of Google Maps. 

I don't use Google maps, or many of the other apps from Google's platform when it's possible to avoid them, due to their abysmal record with regard to privacy.

AppleInsider said:

Later, at the gate, the Find My app let me know my bag had made its way to the plane. When we landed in LaGuardia, I saw it make its way to the baggage claim area.

AirTag isn't precise enough to let me know with pinpoint accuracy where my bag was on the carousel itself, but that's OK. This isn't an interesting or exciting product. It's a puck the size three stacked quarters, powered by a coin battery.

I recently traveled with an AirTag in my luggage and I did find it a bit helpful at the baggage claim.  On both the outbound and return trips, I found myself stuck in a crowd of people on the side of the baggage carousel opposite from where the bags entered and without a clear view.  I was able to leave the Find My app open and as soon as the "Find Nearby" button appeared in place of the "Approximate Distance/Directions" button I was able to correctly surmise that my bag had entered the carousel from the other side and the AirTag had established a direct connection with my phone.  The Find Nearby screen even helpfully displayed the more precise distance between my bag and the phone so I could determine when it was about to come around the corner and approach me.  This is admittedly more entertaining than it is practical since knowing my bag is somewhere on the belt is enough information to start looking for it.  I could see the precise tracking being useful in the occasional baggage situation where the airport staff have already removed the bags for a flight from the carousel and placed them all together somewhere in the baggage claim area though.

My only complaint about this experience is that the only notification option available for an AirTag, "Notify when Found", will send an alert the next time the tag's position is updated by ANY device participating in the Find My Network.  It would be helpful if there were also a similar "Notify when Nearby" notification that would alert me the next time the tag is detected by my device directly.  It would have allowed me to avoid keeping the Find My app open and watching for the button to change.  I believe Tile and/or Trackr offer an option like that, though it was a little flakey when I last tried it.

mike1 said:

This looks interesting. I'm in the market for a Smart Lock and was leaning towards the new August WiFi. The only thing that gives me pause with the Level is changing the battery. Even though they claim it will last a year, changing the battery looks like it will be a mini-project in itself, as everything needs to come apart again.

There is no need to disassemble the lock to replace the battery, you simply extend the deadbolt while the door is open, and then unscrew a cap on the end and swap the battery there.  That is why the deadbolt strike is cylindrical rather than rectangular, and why it includes a new strike plate for your door frame to accommodate the new deadbolt shape.

I’ve had this lock for a couple of months now and, overall, it has been a pretty great experience.  Sending commands to it using HomeKit has been more reliable than with the previous August Pro lock I had installed.  I also really appreciate that lock maintains the appearance of any standard American door lock, as the August lock frequently baffled visitors who weren’t sure how to grab and turn it.

The main downsides are that the app and feature list are pretty barebones compared with the August lock.  I preferred the auto-unlock feature with August that did not require me to pull out and unlock my phone to confirm a prompt.  As long as I approached the door with an authenticated device in my pocket, the August would just do it’s thing and unlock.  I also really enjoyed the open-close sensor on the later model August lock that simply required you to place or embed small magnet to/in the door frame and it would detect the proximity of the lock to the magnet with enough precision to know if the door was even just ajar and prevent it from trying to auto-lock.  Since the Level Lock installation already requires replacing the strike and the strike plate, it seems like a missed opportunity that they didn’t embed a similar sensor paired with a magnet inside the strike plate.
On that note, the other downside to the Level Lock is that installation did get quite a bit more involved than the other retrofit smart locks I have tried in the past.  The motor, strike, and strike plate all required my door and frame to be within more rigid tolerances in order to assemble and work together.  I imagine on newer homes, where the doors had their mechanism holes cut out with factory precision, it’s not an issue, but on my door where the holes were seemingly cut at the time of installation with less specialized tools the motor and strike parts would not fit together inside the door and the strike plate would not fit in the recess where the old strike plate resided.  I had to break out my dremel tool (actually a nail grinder for pets that turned out to accept standard dremel bits and attachments perfectly) and make some adjustments to both before I could properly install the lock.

I think it will end up in the same vein as the G4 Cube: a novelty for it's design, but with no longevity to it's usefulness as a computer.