Damn! I thought I had a Brilliant Idea. I am at a total loss on this issue. They have shipped me a replacement lock (Only the part that mounts on the interior side of the door) that has WiFi built it. It should arrive today. Knocking on Wood!
The bridge, per se, is not the problem. The problem is the lock not being willing to BT communicate with your phone when it is already communicating with (for bridged locks) some other device via BT - in this case the bridge being the other device. However, the only time it is communicating with the bridge (to my understanding) is when the bridge is communicating with the U-Tec server via its WiFi side. At least for me, that is not a continuous BT connection so AU works for me (with the original app) some of the time, more so when I approach the house on foot, which gives the lock longer to finish any bridge communication.
BTW, the servers periodically poll the lock via the wifi channel (which is why there is BT traffic from the bridge even when we are not doing anything with the app). We can kill this polling by unplugging the bridge - people with wifi locks canāt stop the polling and have the same problem (even worse) because their locks seem to prioritize listing to the wifi channel relative to the BT channel.
I assume Smartthings is like a bridge but is not a problem for AU because it only connects to the lock when you are doing something (e.g., servers canāt poll through your Smartthings).
I am using Android, it appears to me that many times the Bluetooth is not recognized until minutes after entering the home.
Exactly - if the lock is communicating (via BT or WiFi) it will not start a new BT session.
An article of interestā¦ particularly for Android users (note I believe the article is from a while ago)
Hi Bennett2 - been a while since weāve been on this thread. Iāve been testing the beta version of the app and in the process tripped over a work around that seems to ensure high reliability of AU without unplugging the bridge. I am guessing it would work on locks with built in WiFi too.
Since we last communicated I got a new router that has a separate IoT channel and I connected my lock to that channel. That means my phoneās wifi link never sees the phone directly, so when I re-enter the geofence and I get close enough to my house to pick up my wifi signal, my phone only communicates with the lock over the cell networkā¦ until, of course, I get within BT range, at which point the autounlock kicks in.
Bruce,
I have had the beta version of the app and if anything it has been worse. For the last several days it has not recognized that I am away. Today, I 'm several hundred miles from home and it finally said I am in the away mode. Iām not sure what loT is but my router has a guest channel, will that do the same thing?
Steve
IoT = Internet of Things. With all the āsmartā devices we all own, all of which are connected to the internet to communicate with servers etc. and are arguably hackable, itās become a āthingā to have your home network, a guest network, and now an IoT network. Each of which talk to the internet but but not to each other (that way, for example, a guest in your house can have WiFi to the internet but not access to your computers, printers, etc.) The IoT network similarly isolates those devices from your computers, at least not being āinsideā your network.
So, yes, try setting your lock up on the guest network.
As far as the beta being worse for AUā¦ I observed that the beta seems to want to connect to the lock, even when close, via wifi, which we know seems to block making the required BT connection. the hack we just discussed keeps the phone from joining the same wifi network as the lock, and that seems to help make the BT connection happen. Canāt hurt.
As far as not recognizing you are outside the geofenceā¦ I got nothing on that.
Thanks, when we get back home I will give it a try and let you know.
Bruce4, Thanks for the input, I have all but given up on ever getting it work again. U-Tec has replaced the lock with a newer one with WiFi built in. And it has worked twice. over a few months. I too have noticed what @Stephen5 states about not being recognized as in away mode.
In the past when all was good. I would be able to leave the house. Open the app and go to the Lock->Gear Icon for settings->Auto Unlock and it would have the āAwayā button in blue as it would be in away mode.
Now it does not. It shows the Away icon as grayed out and if I tap it to put it into Away mode, IT FREAKING UNLOCKS THE DOOR! WHY would touching the Away Button UNLOCK the DOOR!?!?!
All this even when I get the alerts on my phone from the app that āI have left the house and it will unlock when I returnā and āYou have returned and the lock will unlock when you approach it.ā
I will try the guest mode network and see what fresh new hell that creates.
Geesh, the away/home thing is purely in the app. The app is supposed to get your location from the phoneās GPS, compare it to your stored lock location, and flip from home to away or back as you cross the geofence. All in the phone, nothing to do with the lock.
I do know that if I select āawayā while Iām home, the GPS immediately flips it back to ābackā and will unlock the door immediately as you would expect when you have transitioned from away to back and are within BT range. So maybe you didnāt notice the quick switch from back-to-away-to-back? BTW, when you say grayed out do you mean it looks like the attached?
I have set the WiFi to the guest network, do I leave the auto-unlock set to the main WiFi network?
Yes, you leave the phone on you regular WiFi network so it can only talk to the lock by going out to the internet and then coming back in via the guest network.
Does anyone else continually get the error "Administrator login failed (-8):
I believe I did see that onceā¦donāt remember what I did to get rid of it. Never hurts to reboot your phone and, if that fails, delete app and reinstall (your data is saved on Utecās servers so when you log into your account it will be restored. Fingerprints (if you have that lock) I >think< are stored in the lock, since it would be a problem getting in if the power in your house was down - I donāt have a fingerprint lock.
No. No there isnāt. This is STILL not fixed. I just looked at mine and it was mysteriously turned off. Not by me.
Who turned it off? I hope the dog doesnāt have the password.
Hi Stephen - Iāve been using the beta version of the app and it has the same issue. As a hack, however, Iāve found that connecting your lock to a separate 2.4 network improves AU performance since your phone, in your wifi range, doesnāt immediately connect to your lock (it can only ātalkā to your lock via the Utec servers).
By separate network I mean a guest network or IoT network, which has its own SSID and password.
This is a big disappointment from when they switched from the utec app to the uhome app. before auto unlock work perfectly. Not anymore. the new app is a downgrade
Hi @Mouton - From my observation, the problem, in general, is that the lock canāt/doesnāt communicate over its BlueTooth channel if it is communicating over its WiFi channel [this is easy to prove if you have a lock that uses the bridge for WiFi]ā¦ and the new app prioritizes communicating with the lock over WiFi. Since the autounlock command comes from your phone and is triggered by and sent from your phone over Bluetooth, this prioritization of WiFi in the app makes AutoUnlock unreliable to say the least. The old app also had this prioritization but not as pervasive.
I have found a workaround that, well, works for me. Namely, put the lock on a wifi channel that is isolated from your regular wifi channel. In your router this may be a āguestā channel or an āIoTā [Internet of things] channel. What this does is keep your phone from communicating with your lock over your wifi channelā¦ instead it communicates with your lock as it does when you are away from home - the signal goes out to the web and reenters you home, so as you approach your house your phone doesnāt latch onto your lock over your WiFi, allowing the Bluetooth connection to happen.
NOTE: All of this is based on my independent āreverse engineeringā of what I have observed with my bridge-enabled lock. If I unplug my bridge AU works 100% of the time (at the cost of being able to remotely [out of BT range] control my lock) - I assume you could test this for a WiFi lock by shutting down your routerās connection to your lock. If you donāt know how to do that you can - just for the experiment - turn off your router.
Ill try it hopefully it works
