I’ve had three of the Ultraloq Bolt Fingerprint devices for about four months now.
They are very finicky with regard to alignment of the units components that are mounted on the door. Unlike my previous Nest-Yale locks, these units require about two of careful troubleshooting for each unit. I don’t know why, but the internal mechanism binds on itself. Unlike the Yale Locks I’ve previously used, these things take a long time to puzzle into a working installation.
The symptom that I saw again and again was that the lock would acknowledge my fingerprint and then attempt to unlock, but fail. Therefore, it would take three tries or using a key to unlock the lock. Consequently, the batteries took a beating. On the other side of operation, it would try to automatically lock the door and fail and simply report that the door lock had jammed. Turning the lock with a key didn’t reveal any binding problem.
At first, I thought it was the bolt hitting the strike plate. I carefully observed this and in some cases filed the strike plates to have a wider opening. But this didn’t resolve the problem.
What did solved the problem was simply fiddling with the alignment of the door mounted components over and over until something worked. I can’t explain why, but this is the case with all three doors.
During the six week troubleshooting period, my wife was quite frustrated with me. These locks made me look like an idiot. I cursed Google for obsoleting my Nest Security system and the very expensive Yale-Nest locks. I still curse them. But this is the challenge having a “smart” home.
Once that was sorted, the Ultra locks have been stable and reliable.
The absolute winning feature of these locks is that they self lock after 15 minutes. My wife taught me that men don’t have to think about locking doors, but women do. Knowing that every door that we forget to lock will lock itself in a few minutes, is a big comfort.
There are still a few little grumbles:
I don’t like that when we have a house sitter, I have to take them to every door to program their numeric code and their fingerprints. It would be much better if we could do that in the app.
Occasionally when unlocking the door from the inside, the mechanism is activated and fights turning the bolt. I have no idea why it does this. Most of the time, unlocking from the inside is super easy. But sometimes, it’s like I’m turning the bolt against the motor while the motor is engaged. The app doesn’t complain, but it is a worry.
Other than these nits, after the installation pains, the locks work well. The finger print ID is so fast and accurate, I never use my numeric code. My rechargeable LiPo AA batteries last about three months. This is acceptable for my home with three door locks, but it would be a real problem in an apartment building.
If I could figure out how to get the installation right the first time, I’d recommend these locks to anyone. The feature set is great. As they are today, I’d recommend them to smart home enthusiasts who are handy and inclined to work stuff out.
