Best Zigbee Door Locks

[EverAction]

On 6/10/2020 at 4:31 PM, RAV said:

I suspect Control4 is buying for about the same cost as Amazon sells them for, plus the added cost of the different Zigbee card and development, plus support and warranty overhead by Control4, plus the dealer's markup to you for his warranty and support and overhead.

 

From my experience, dealers never marked these locks up knowing that they're advertised at lower cost everywhere else and stuck explaining to the customer the cheaper one is incompatible. They sell it for what they paid C4 for with the piece of mind it's going to "just work" without buying the cheaper version and somehow finding the correct Zigbee card. So you are right in saying the mark up is for the compatible Zigbee card (does C4 manufacturer, do they license manufacturing to Kwikset -- also a big part of the "why so much" convo), support & warranty overhead by Control4. The dealers not so much. They charge for the labor of dealing with the lock, that's all.

 

[RAV]

On 6/10/2020 at 5:19 PM, zaphod said:

Does there have to be two middle men?

Why is this so different than buying other third party products, like an Echo Dot, or a Hue light bulb, which, although not a proprietary C4 product, works as a device in my C4 system.  I can buy an Echo Dot for $50 and the manufacturer, Amazon assumes warranty, support, etc?  Same think with lots of other third party devices?  The only difference that I can think of is that the lock uses Zigbee as opposed to Wifi or ethernet.  I may pay for a driver but I am not paying large markups.

 

Locks are unique in the Control4 environment in that they are the same hardware except the card to make their radio compatible.

Everything else, is either proprietary hardware by Control4, or add a software driver; where the driver is either Control4, Vendor commissioned, or third party written. There's no 'added' hardware part to add/change to make a third party piece compatible with Control4. We're not sticking sim cards in light switches.

Remember too, this is a 15  year old arrangement. A lot has changed since then in the automation world. What other way could it have been done all the years ago? The only locks were Kwikset and they were focused on zwave, not even WiFi. My point being it's grandfathered if you will, but at the same time it does function properly this way, not broke except perhaps in the delivery chain. If they changed now, and sold just the card, then there's issues with firmware matching, etc. Not worth it to Control4 to change course, nor most dealers for the added aggravation, that we have enough of already.

[jfh]

On 6/6/2020 at 5:24 AM, msgreenf said:

Any locks w an August module can be integrated w a free driver

I love the August blocks and driver.  And the lock experience button from C4.  I’ve been very pleasantly surprised with the battery life on the August lock.

[dinom]

What does the lock experience button provide?

[jfh]

1 hour ago, dinom said:

What does the lock experience button provide?

The door auto lock driver shows whether a door is open/closed, locked/unlocked and can be used to lock/unlock the door from the UI.  Can have status lights bound to a button.  Set auto lock time and probably a few other things.

[RyanE]

3 hours ago, jfh said:

The door auto lock driver shows whether a door is open/closed, locked/unlocked and can be used to lock/unlock the door from the UI.  Can have status lights bound to a button.  Set auto lock time and probably a few other things.

One of the 'few other things' (and the reason I developed the driver initially) is that the auto lock functionality will *not* lock the lock until after the door is closed (if you have a door contact sensor).

I got tired of the lock's auto lock engaging while the door was open (or just closing), and slamming the deadbolt into the latch.

With Auto Lock driver and a contact input on the door, it waits for the door to close, then starts the countdown timer, and when that expires, if the door is still closed, locks the lock.

RyanE