Yale Assure Lock 2 with fingerprint and Home Keys

[ashwinmj]

8 minutes ago, macosr said:

I would be curious what the response time is from the time you do an action within the C4 app vs when it is executed and reported back vs wifi.

 

My setup wouldn’t be a fair benchmark for the response time. The extent of my ZigBee network is a Core 1 and the Yale lock, that’s it. The distance between the two isn’t a lot, but there are several obstructions. 

That said, the response time varies from 1-4 seconds, which is the same as what I experienced with the first gen Assure Lock. Someone else with a more extensive ZigBee network might be better to comment on the response time of ZigBee vs Wi-Fi, but I’ve heard it’s a lot quicker on ZigBee. When I did use Wi-Fi, it sometimes took as long as 15 seconds for a response and sometimes commands completely failed as well. 

[macosr]

1 minute ago, ashwinmj said:

My setup wouldn’t be a fair benchmark for the response time. The extent of my ZigBee network is a Core 1 and the Yale lock, that’s it. The distance between the two isn’t a lot, but there are several obstructions. 

That said, the response time varies from 1-4 seconds, which is the same as what I experienced with the first gen Assure Lock. Someone else with a more extensive ZigBee network might be better to comment on the response time of ZigBee vs Wi-Fi, but I’ve heard it’s a lot quicker on ZigBee. When I did use Wi-Fi, it sometimes took as long as 15 seconds for a response and sometimes commands completely failed as well. 

My wifi response time is 1 to 2 seconds from the time I tap the lock until it locks and reports back. That said, I have an extensive and robust wifi mesh network that is rock solid and very responsive. I’ve also had no failed events yet.

I’ll be able to test the zigbee network vs wifi once my zigbee card comes in sometime this month. I have ~200 zigbee devices with 3 controllers participating in the zigbee network at my house so mine would be a good test.

 

[ashwinmj]

4 minutes ago, macosr said:

That said, I have an extensive and robust wifi mesh network that is rock solid and very responsive.

My WiFi is strong as well, using a Unifi setup. I don’t suspect that to have been an issue when I tried it out. One difference though - I used the August Connect WiFi bridge. I never tried the Yale WiFi module. A disadvantage of the module though is that it drains the battery on the lock a lot quicker.

 

[macosr]

7 minutes ago, ashwinmj said:

My WiFi is strong as well, using a Unifi setup. I don’t suspect that to have been an issue when I tried it out. One difference though - I used the August Connect WiFi bridge. I never tried the Yale WiFi module. A disadvantage of the module though is that it drains the battery on the lock a lot quicker.

 

Yeah…I’m not using a wifi bridge device. I am using the August C4 Driver which works great. It sounds like the bridge was the problem (most likely).

[Dueport]

10 hours ago, ashwinmj said:

I have good news! The Yale Assure Lock 2 Plus (with Apple Home Keys) works with the C4 ZigBee module!

I was using the module in my older Assure Lock gen 1. I swapped out the module to the new lock and registered the module in the Yale app, and it all worked immediately. Nothing had to be done in C4. 

I haven't tried it in the model with fingerprint, but I assume it would be the same since the Verge article made it seem like the fingerprint version has wider module support than the Home Keys model. 

 

Fantastic news! Thank you for posting! I'll be picking one or more up in the next few months now for sure!

[Dueport]

On 10/5/2023 at 12:14 PM, ashwinmj said:

I have good news! The Yale Assure Lock 2 Plus (with Apple Home Keys) works with the C4 ZigBee module!

I was using the module in my older Assure Lock gen 1. I swapped out the module to the new lock and registered the module in the Yale app, and it all worked immediately. Nothing had to be done in C4. 

I haven't tried it in the model with fingerprint, but I assume it would be the same since the Verge article made it seem like the fingerprint version has wider module support than the Home Keys model. 

 

Curious if, when different users unlock the lock using Home Key, do you get different "LAST_UNLOCKED_BY" values in Composer? With the regular Assure 2 lock, this variable stores the name of the user that enters their code with the name equal to the name associated with that code in lock manager in C4 navigator. This is useful because you can program the system to respond differently based on who is entering the house (like housekeeper v family). Probably anyone with a Home Key is going to be treated the same anyway in programming but just curious.....

[macosr]

8 minutes ago, Dueport said:

Curious if, when different users unlock the lock using Home Key, do you get different "LAST_UNLOCKED_BY" values in Composer? With the regular Assure 2 lock, this variable stores the name of the user that enters their code with the name equal to the name associated with that code in lock manager in C4 navigator. This is useful because you can program the system to respond differently based on who is entering the house (like housekeeper v family). Probably anyone with a Home Key is going to be treated the same anyway in programming but just curious.....

Not that I see. I do see in Home Kit who locked/unlocked on my phone but not in the C4 App. But I am using the wifi integration right now. I’ll check in composer later today.

[ashwinmj]

11 hours ago, Dueport said:

Curious if, when different users unlock the lock using Home Key, do you get different "LAST_UNLOCKED_BY" values in Composer? 

I'm actually having trouble with my lock. Home Keys was working great with my phone, but with the watch it would stop working in spurts. To rule out any set up issues, I factory reset the lock. Now the lock fails to add in Home Kit. I talked to both Yale and Apple support. Right now they're clueless, and it seems like they might need to replace the lock. 

[macosr]

13 hours ago, ashwinmj said:

I'm actually having trouble with my lock. Home Keys was working great with my phone, but with the watch it would stop working in spurts. To rule out any set up issues, I factory reset the lock. Now the lock fails to add in Home Kit. I talked to both Yale and Apple support. Right now they're clueless, and it seems like they might need to replace the lock. 

Interesting…I have also found that the Home Kit automations do not work as well but I don’t really care. I am going to look into the issue further when I setup the additional locks this coming week.

[Dueport]

17 hours ago, ashwinmj said:

I'm actually having trouble with my lock. Home Keys was working great with my phone, but with the watch it would stop working in spurts. To rule out any set up issues, I factory reset the lock. Now the lock fails to add in Home Kit. I talked to both Yale and Apple support. Right now they're clueless, and it seems like they might need to replace the lock. 

Sorry to hear that sounds like a pain and frustrating - hope you’re able to get it working again. Good luck and let us know how it goes!

[macosr]

I figured I would update this thread. The C4 integration has been flawless utilizing the wifi cards in the locks. I’m impressed with the speed so I haven’t really tried installing the C4 module in a lock yet. 

On another note: None of my Assure Lock 2 with HomeKeys locks are working with Apple Home Kit over wifi. There is certainly an issue but not sure what it is yet. My other Yale lock, which is within Bluetooth range of the equipment rack works fine with Apple Home Kit. My hunch is that there is some issues with Apple Home Kit and wifi connectivity and the locks. I have an open ticket with Yale on the issue but no resolution as of yet.

[msgreenf]

But it’s Apple - there are never bugs….

[macosr]

28 minutes ago, msgreenf said:

But it’s Apple - there are never bugs….

Unfortunately Apple has been seemingly getting worse with bugs on iOS with each update the past couple years. The underpinnings are rock solid for iOS but...don't get me started  I'm an old school BSD Unix / FreeBSD / etc diehard but I guess that ages me just a bit. I've also found a few bugs in the Yale App so hopefully I can help them a bit...if they want it.

[ashwinmj]

I just heard back from Yale a few hours ago on the issue I was facing with HomeKit and the lock - the lock needs to be replaced! so it worked for all of 2 days with the Home Keys! 
 

8 hours ago, macosr said:

None of my Assure Lock 2 with HomeKeys locks are working with Apple Home Kit over wifi.

The 2 days the HomeKit integration worked for me, I was able to control the lock via HomeKit through WiFi. My HomeKit hub is the first gen Apple TV 4k. 

[macosr]

On 10/18/2023 at 1:15 AM, ashwinmj said:

I just heard back from Yale a few hours ago on the issue I was facing with HomeKit and the lock - the lock needs to be replaced! so it worked for all of 2 days with the Home Keys! 
 

The 2 days the HomeKit integration worked for me, I was able to control the lock via HomeKit through WiFi. My HomeKit hub is the first gen Apple TV 4k. 

I had Yale support tell me that I need the Yale WiFi Hub in order to use HomeKit over wifi with the new locks and that HomeKit will only communicate via bluetooth with the locks and that the wifi is only intended for their app. At least that is what Yale support told me on Friday. It is curious because this is mentioned nowhere in the documentation online or that comes with the new locks.

[ashwinmj]

On 10/22/2023 at 2:52 AM, macosr said:

I had Yale support tell me that I need the Yale WiFi Hub in order to use HomeKit over wifi with the new locks and that HomeKit will only communicate via bluetooth with the locks and that the wifi is only intended for their app. At least that is what Yale support told me on Friday. It is curious because this is mentioned nowhere in the documentation online or that comes with the new locks.

My understanding was that the WiFi module/bridge are intended only for Yale app access remotely and HomeKit communicates via Bluetooth only. I believe this is the case for all of the Yale Assure Lock 2 models - the original, the Home Keys model, and fingerprint model. 

[macosr]

On 10/25/2023 at 4:28 PM, ashwinmj said:

My understanding was that the WiFi module/bridge are intended only for Yale app access remotely and HomeKit communicates via Bluetooth only. I believe this is the case for all of the Yale Assure Lock 2 models - the original, the Home Keys model, and fingerprint model. 

That was my understanding with the previous locks as well. However, the Yale website still states that the only thing required for Apple HomeKit to work is: "*Remote access via HomeKit requires Apple TV or iPad as home hub." and this clearly is not the case. Nowhere in the Yale documentation, apart from what a report rep told me after going back and forth with Yale support for a week, does it state that the bridge is required to use HomeKit with the new locks.

Honestly I believe these locks are riddled with software bugs. I can't be the only one having issues with them. Forget HomeKit...I'm having issues with the Yale App being able to properly setup users with the three locks I have installed so far. Some locks don't appear under the same home for some users and some locks say "keypad only" for Access Level and there is no ability to change those users' access level in the Yale App.

[ashwinmj]

1 hour ago, macosr said:

Nowhere in the Yale documentation, apart from what a report rep told me after going back and forth with Yale support for a week, does it state that the bridge is required to use HomeKit with the new locks.

For the 2 days or so that the lock did work for me before HomeKit integration completely broke - I didn’t need to use the bridge for remote access via HomeKit. I was able to use HomeKit remotely using just the lock (with or without the C4 Zigbee module inside) and an Apple TV.

[Dueport]

On 10/29/2023 at 12:03 PM, macosr said:

Honestly I believe these locks are riddled with software bugs.

I have an update on the fingerprint version which, unfortunately, mirrors your experience. I setup the lock through the Yale app then tried to add the C4 module through the Yale app so the lock would see it and then could start enrollment with C4. Sadly, the lock refused to see the module at all - so, unless I was doing something wrong (which is always possible), my experience is that it appears that the firmware of the fingerprint version won't recognize the module. The normal Assure 2 locks work fine with the C4 module so the firmware between the standard Assure 2 and the fingerprint version are different in that respect. Additionally, I tried enrolling two fingerprints to the lock through the Yale app and found that the fingerprint sensor was extremely unreliable. So much so that we would never use it over simply entering the code. So this fingerprint version is being returned because it won't work directly with the C4 module and the fingerprint sensor doesn't work well. Instead, we'll be using the standard version again because it works with the C4 module and is very reliable. I didn't try the Apple Home Key version of the lock because it doesn't come in the color (oil rubbed bronze) that we need.

[ERDrPC]

I just got my assure2 touch installed using the c4 module. Everything works great except lock does not push any info when fingerprint is used to unlock. When setting up the lock it asked whether yale or 3rd part to manage the pin users and it works as normal with the c4 driver. My installer told me that we need yale & c4 to talk to build the fingerprint functionality into the c4 driver. Who do we talk to for that? 

[Leighm0]

1 hour ago, ERDrPC said:

I just got my assure2 touch installed using the c4 module. Everything works great except lock does not push any info when fingerprint is used to unlock. When setting up the lock it asked whether yale or 3rd part to manage the pin users and it works as normal with the c4 driver. My installer told me that we need yale & c4 to talk to build the fingerprint functionality into the c4 driver. Who do we talk to for that? 

The Zigbee Yale Smart Locks driver in the database looks like it was actually written by ASSA ABLOY / Yale themselves, and not by Control4.  So I think it is 100% on Yale to update this driver.

  <copyright>Copyright 2021 ASSA ABLOY. All rights reserved.</copyright>
  <creator>Yale</creator>
  <manufacturer>Yale</manufacturer>

 

[ERDrPC]

16 minutes ago, Leighm0 said:

The Zigbee Yale Smart Locks driver in the database looks like it was actually written by ASSA ABLOY / Yale themselves, and not by Control4.  So I think it is 100% on Yale to update this driver.

  <copyright>Copyright 2021 ASSA ABLOY. All rights reserved.</copyright>
  <creator>Yale</creator>
  <manufacturer>Yale</manufacturer>

 

I wonder who we can contact at control4 to request this from Yale. I have 9 of the old Yale locks and 1 new assure2 touch. It is heads and tails above the old locks. Now with fingerprint entry - if officially supported I wouldn't doubt that it becomes the most popular C4 lock. My family loves it. 

[Leighm0]

22 hours ago, ERDrPC said:

I wonder who we can contact at control4 to request this from Yale. I have 9 of the old Yale locks and 1 new assure2 touch. It is heads and tails above the old locks. Now with fingerprint entry - if officially supported I wouldn't doubt that it becomes the most popular C4 lock. My family loves it. 

yeah im keen on swapping my old Yale Assure's with the Assure 2 Touch... I wouldn't really need any automations however based on which fingerprint was used to unlock the door - so will plan on grabbing some to swap out my existing soon I guess.