dtidmore

Unlike the other two earlier posters, my 3rd gen ATV has been a solid performer.  I do on rare occasion get a single channel that will stop responding but in almost all cases, I can trace the spinner back to internet issues.  I do have mine connected via Gig-E cable.

The one nagging problem I have is that while Airplay used to be persistent once set (ie between uses going into standby), several releases ago the behavior changed such that it for whatever reason, the ATV says it is unable to connect to the previously set Airplay device, yet, it will immediately connect to it when I make the change either thru the settings or the shortcut (ie hold play/pause while in main menu).  The Airplay device is an original design Airport Express used solely to feed audio into an original Apple HiFI speaker (used on a second TV).  The sound out of the old HiFi speaker is still amazing! 

This update really did not want to behave well.  The first attempt at download failed, the 2nd attempt it failed while "preparing" on the 3rd time, it finally installed properly.  NO clue what was going on.

bshank said:

I have the previous generation August smartlock. I would mostly be curious how the performance of the pro compares. I generally enjoy my current August smartlock. The geofencing works fairly well, but sometimes takes 5-15 seconds to open while I stand at my front door waiting for it to trigger. I do walk fast, so my experience has been that if I have to unload the car, or walk down my hall at a more leisurely pace, the geofence trigger works 90% of the time.

I just installed 2 of the new Pro locks, replacing both 1st gen August locks.  First impressions...good!  August still insists on making the setup too automagic for those of us techies who have layered security.  I had to turn off some of my security layers in order to get the Connects to configure.  August also STILL insists on NOT providing the MAC address for the Connects.  Yes, once I got the Connects to run thru thru their automagic configuration (seems to ALWAYS require multiple run thru to complete successfully), I was able to determine the MAC addy ( I run static NAT addy, MacAC filtering and very limited DHCP range)

Now as for the actual lock differences.  
First off the door position awareness is FANTASTIC!  I went down the path of drilling the 5/8" cavity in the door jam and installing the magnet so that it was hidden.  Much better looking that the hideous external mount and really not all that difficult assuming you have a 5/8" wood bit. Now there are no more annoying autolocks while the door is open while talking to someone and I love the notification of when the door is detected to have been open for longer than a user selected time period.  I did wind up having to recalibrate the door awareness sensor a few time as I kept getting an indication that the door was open/locked.  I am not sure why that situation seemed to finally clear up as I calibrated the sensor the same way each time.   Oh well, a minor inconvenience, easily resolved.

Second kudos is the inclusion of HomeKit compatibility, but this is not new as gen 2 also included this, but it was a new feature to me as I was replacing gen 1 devices.  I did discover that despite the option in the August iOS app to add a new room to the HomeKit home, that does NOT work.  Not a big deal, just jump over to the HomeKit app, add the room, then back to the August app and setup the lock in HomeKit.  I was a bit surprised that August did NOT include the scannable code for setting up HK, but keying the ID number was not a big deal.  Siri control is cool but HomeKit HA is way more than Siri.

Third. PERFORMANCE....BIG IMPROVEMENT!  Gen 1 devices always worked but as you stated, you had to be patient.  Now the unlock happens super fast.  Also the announcements to the August App & HomeKit app are virtually instantaneous.  

As for how well GeoFencing compares, I have not had a lot of time to evaluate, but I never had issues with the Gen 1 products detecting that I had entered the geofenced area, was outside the home, and then triggering the unlock.  Given how fast the gen 3 devices seem to work the problem I see is that I want a SHORT time to auto lock now that I don't have to contend with it auto locking while the door is open, BUT that means that the door will likely unlock on geofence trigger, then relock before I can get to the door.

I am VERY glad I passed over the gen 2 devices as the door awareness sensor is a much needed and welcome improvement.  I felt like I got burned a bit on the gen 1 devices (I was a VERY early adopter so I do feel I got my money worth regardless) as it was alluded that HomeKit was coming but then as we discovered that was NOT possible in the gen 1 devices and August's offer of a $50 discount was pretty lame.  Still, we love the August locks and I intend to repurpose the gen 1 locks to the entry door from the garage as well as my pantry door and probably my kitchen pantry (I have my reasons)

I used the Apple Store App, preloaded with orders for both colors.  I had the ATT website up and running in Safari on my mac as my fallback.  ATT went live at exactly top of hour and within the few seconds it took 1Password to load my credentials and the login to occur there was already a 6 minute wait in queue.  I immediately started trying to get into the Apple Store app which finally went live about 3 minutes after the hour.  My favorites were there, I clicked on the white and the order sailed thru, including the handshake with ATT.  Got a Nov 3 delivery and a confirmation!  I really did not think I had any chance at a day 1 delivery so I am a very happy camper.   Don't know exactly when Apple locked a reservation into their system, but I did use Apple Pay which sped things along nicely.  I had completed my order via the Apple Store before my place in the ATT queue came up.  I was amazed at how well the entire process worked this year!

The_Martini_Cat said:

Ha ha does this include the 50-cent deposit on your shopping cart?  Last time I was at Aldi there were 3 people gathered around the shopping cart dispenser trying to figure it out.  (I just carried a bag in with me ... & the checker-outer wouldn't even put my groceries into it.  DIY as-much-as-possible)  Cheers! 

One thing you NEVER see around an Aldi store is wandering carts in the parking lot.  That simple 25cent deposit works wonders to get people to walk the short distance to return their cart, lock it to the others and get BACK their 25 cents.  

We really like Aldi for a lot of items and shop there pretty much weekly so Apple Pay will just make it all the better!

beowulfschmidt said:

Is this one of those that needs a subscription?  If so, non-starter.  Otherwise, I might consider it.

As the current August Lock does NOT require any subscription, I would assume the new one is the same.