I have two old Schlage Zwave deadbolt locks that I migrated from my old Smartthings system to HA. They have not worked well on HA and I have just wasted 2+ hours this morning trying to get one back on the system.
Anyone have a recommendation for a new HA compatible lock? No Zwave (ever again), no Wifi. Preferably Matter/thread.
…and my spouse insists, with a key…, but I could talk her out of that if needed
Ok… so ZWave is on your don’t buy again list, but is that because of the Schlage lock? Their Zwave line is known for not being the best at the protocol level. I personally use the Kwikset zwave locks. They’ve been very good to me in the 7+ years I’ve been using them. I’ll also note, that if you’re trying to manage your lock via HA, then the best way with zwave devices is via Keymaster. Other lock types (other than Akuvox access control) are not currently supported by Keymaster.
I can’t speak for any of the Matter based locks out there. I’ve not used them so I don’t know how well any work in HA. If I had to, I would probably just stick with Kwikset myself since they are easy to rekey the physical key and I have several properties… the Kwikset Aura Reach is a Matter-over-thread + blutooth only lock, no WiFi and meets your desire to have a physical key as well as no WiFi.
Heck… I may just pick one up to add to my very small and growing collection of smart locks for Keymaster development support…
Sorry, you might want to give Zwave another shot. I’ve been using the Yale YRD622 for over 6 years, no issues, no problems. the same lock, I use 4 of them. 3 actively being used and 1 as a test lock.
3 kwikset zwave 7 yrs. No issues.
Matter is worse than zwave so don’t go that direction expecting better. Grass is greener until it’s your lawn. I have matter devices that work well but they definitely don’t feel as reliable and failures are harder to track with matter. I have no matter locks
I have found Zwave devices to be generally reliable. I have 45 of them. But moving them from Smartthings to HA was horrendously difficult. I had to at least touch a button on each one to exclude it, and then again to add it to HA. Some I had to remove from walls to access a printed code or QR code. I’m a busy guy, so it took weeks!
Since moving to HA I have had a couple of instances where (sometimes accidentally self-imposed) Zwave floods have caused my 45 Zwave devices to slow down or not respond at all. Both were related to my use of KeyMaster, which I have since removed.
Keymaster has gotten a lot better with the recent releases. I use it extensively at many properties and at I’ve got a couple HA installs with Keymaster controlling 6+ locks.
I’ll make a note about matter based locks, apparently the matter standard chose to have locks not report what the PINs are for any code programmed into the locks. So, if you decide to go that route, whatever you use either needs to track what the codes are itself, or you need to do it. Heaven forbid if you’ve got more than one edge controller that decides to make changes to the device!
The issues you are encountering is your specific setup. Potentially distance / signal strength (mine are not ‘near’ my Zwave radio and they work fine). Zwave protocol is multiple times more resilient and reliable than Zigbee or Wifi as long as you have enough repeaters (full time powered).
I’ve had multiple Schlage Zwave locks since they were first release… zero issues. I have the same two units on my home for 14 yrs, both in daily use (multiple times a day). Nothing Zigbee or Wifi is nearly as reliable… and I’ve had dozens of different products in all categories