This is Technology Bytes, episode 30, for October 1st, 2023.
Technology Bytes is a microcast where I share brief bytes on interesting technology.
My name is Joel.
Enjoy, and here we go.
So this past week, I’ve moved into a new place.
And with that, I am starting all of my home automation setup with HomeKit, and lots of opportunities to do my own thing, because my wife and I have purchased this place.
And one of the things that we enjoy and have at other places that we live, even rentals, is a smart lock on the door that will unlock when you get home, that will lock when you leave, and those kind of things.
And I’ve always appreciated the level lock, and so I want to talk about that this week.
It’s an automated smart lock that has priority placement in the Apple universe, because if I read the information right, I think Apple actually participated with this company to make a lock that they like.
I think it’s the only one that is actually carried in the Apple store, and that happens to be where I bought mine.
And the level lock is very simple.
It is the picture of simplicity.
It is just a deadbolt replacement.
It has a little different than the August lock, which just replaces the deadbolt guts, so that’s maybe even more simple.
This actually replaces the whole deadbolt assembly, but that’s it.
It’s quite simple.
It’s fairly easy to install.
It is very expensive.
I’m not fully understanding why smart locks are so expensive, but they are, and that is where we live at the moment.
So my son and I worked together to do the installation, and I will admit that he did a lot of it, but then we were able to set it up and work with it.
Then I started looking at reviews, and my wife said, don’t you usually do that before you purchase something?
And I said, yeah, I guess I hadn’t heard anything.
I’d kind of set my mind on wanting to get a level lock, but the reviews that I read were actually quite bad.
I went back and looked up some articles from tech writers, you know, publications, not just people giving their opinion on the level lock at a purchase site or something like that, and they actually wrote some pretty good reviews on it, saying that it worked well, but that people reviews, mostly in the app store, when I was downloading the level lock app, were saying it’s just terrible.
The battery dies, there’s no warning, and then all of a sudden you’re maybe locked out, or the connection gets lost, and so you can’t get in, and so all kinds of things.
Very few of the reviews were actually positive, and so that made me really nervous.
Now, I bought it from the Apple store, so I think I’ve got kind of that two-week window, maybe, and I’m one week in, and it seems to be working well, but I’m still questioning whether this was the correct purchase.
So let’s go back to the setup.
Basically what we did is took apart the deadbolt that was on my door already, installed the level lock.
It really was just a swap-in replacement.
There’s a couple of settings that you can do, depending on how deep your deadbolt socket is in the door jam, because they’ve got a couple different lengths that you can put in, and also the deadbolt itself is a little bigger than the normal door deadbolt, so they do give you a new strike plate, and that works pretty well.
We ended up using those because we were getting jams that we couldn’t quite figure out, and then we realized it’s just a size thing.
It sets up quite easily, and then when we connected it to HomeKit, just did a quick search, and they have a barcode.
It connected right up.
We were able to unlock, unlock, and talk to the S-lady and do the same, and it all seemed to be working well, and then I tried to connect it to the app, because I think with the app, you get some additional capabilities, like touch to unlock or touch to lock, and so I was trying to connect it, and it couldn’t be found.
The level app would not find the lock, and so again, a little bit of research, and it seems like if you don’t connect it to the level app before you connect it to HomeKit, you’re up the creek without a paddle, so I found that to be quite frustrating because why would a company do that?
There’s nothing in the documentation.
I read a review and agree with that reviewers.
I set up the lock, and I set it up with HomeKit.
Everything worked great, but there’s nothing that says you have to set up the app first, and so it’s very frustrating.
I wrote to level lock, and sure enough, they wrote back and said, yep, you have to disconnect it from HomeKit, reset it to factory settings, and start the process all over again, connect it to the app first, and I haven’t done that.
I’m trying to decide if I want to because the lock is working pretty well at the moment.
We all have Apple watches and can just hold the watch up to the door, and it locks and unlocks almost as good as touching it, I think, so I’m still waiting to see if I want to do that or not, but overall, it’s been a good experience for the first week.
It works well.
I actually have two because I have a door to my garage and then the front door to my place that both needed a lock so that it was easier entry for us as we go into both places, and so I’m pretty happy with it at the moment.
They look good.
You couldn’t tell by looking that it’s a smart lock.
It just looks like any other lock on a door, and so that’s pretty cool as well.
So a couple of final thoughts.
I think that it is too expensive for what it is.
I don’t really have any feedback on the battery yet because they’re brand new.
It’ll be interesting to see how that works.
If I decide to disconnect it from everything and start again, I will let you know how that goes with the Level app, so I don’t have a lot of— I don’t have any feedback on the Level app at all and how that works.
I do question why so many things that connect to HomeKit and do simple operations don’t carry the same functionality as the app itself, and the Ecobee is the same kind of way.
It’s a great home thermostat that I’ve installed.
I really like how it works, but the operation in the HomeKit app is basically turn it up, turn it down, turn it off.
There’s none of the timing settings, and I know you can do some automation to help with that, but that’s kind of a weak tie, but I’ll cover that in another episode, but lots of devices that have their own apps that are smart devices, the app does way more than HomeKit does, and I don’t quite understand that.
I don’t like it very much.
I wish it was different, but maybe that’s the same regardless, but overall, I’m happy with the locks at this point.
I have to decide before next week if I’m going to keep them for the long haul, and that’s still maybe a little bit up in the air, but they do look good.
They do function well.
I’ve had no issues with them to this point, so probably I will be keeping them for the foreseeable future.
That is all I have for today.
If you have comments or suggestions, you can send them to technologybytesatmerigfamily.com.
That’s technologybytesatmerigfamily, M-E-R-I-G, family.com.
Thank you for listening to the Technology Bytes microcast.
I look forward to the next time we are together taking another bite of technology.
