Have had two Latch 5 fingerprints units now for about 9 months. They are used inside a building. Generally speaking I’ve wanted to like them and have wanted to give them a chance but I just have constant issues with connectivity and fingerprint reading success.
Constant app wifi and bluetooth connection issues
My router is set to 2.4g, the SSID is not hidden, all the latest firmwares. When I open the U-tec app 50% of the time the connection to one of the locks fails. Sometimes it won’t even connect via Bluetooth. The router is 5 ft from one lock and another 4 ft to the other lock. A power reset (talk about frustrating having to unscrew the pad, jiggle a battery, etc.) doesn’t really help. In the last couple days tried to add them to SmartThings to see if it had better management/automation options (scheduled passthrough) but the notification spam of them going online/offline is too frustrating to deal with.
Fingerprint scan issues
My wife’s fingerprint has always had issues, the unit is clean, her fingers don’t have anything on them. Would take 9-10 fingerprints easy. Sometimes one unit in particular would not read her fingerprint and the keypad would also not respond to a touch for backup code entry. I used to think it was her and then in just the past week its started happening to me. Constant red scans and unresponsive keypad. Defeats the whole purpose of a fingerprint being a quicker access than a code. Again, power resets don’t seem to work much. Will use a soft microfiber cloth to wipe them down occasionally and doesn’t seem to change behavior.
I’m frustrated - don’t know what else to try at this point. Too late to return these but wish I could, wasted $400+ on these unless U-tec can fix these issues. Just need them to work - they were better early on (at least for me, not wife) but now they are both atrocious.
Use a repeater. I cannot say why it works but I had same issue like others. I have newer router and could not keep locks connected. Out of frustration I set up a repeater to use only wifi5 and put locks on it by themselves. I have not had any issues since.
Thanks for the suggestion - however a repeater right by my main access point is going to be a massive headache in preventing other devices to not connect to the repeater and saturate it. This seems like a less than ideal solution vs the devices just working as advertised.
@Andres We are so sorry for all these troubles caused for you. Please click here: https://support.u-tec.com/hc/en-us/requests/new to submit a ticket, so that we can try to help you about the wifi dropping and fingerprint issue.
I know this is not the answer you want to hear, but I originally had an Asus Wifi 6E, top-of-the-line ‘gaming’ router, with all the bells and whistles. I had a dedicate 2.4Ghz guest network, etc, like you’re saying, and I still found my locks offline more often than not.
When I switched everything over to Unifi/Ubiquiti, this problem went away. I really think it’s some minor configuration detail in the network. IE, cannot be a shared 2.4/5.0, and needs certain levels of authentication. Overall, just very picky.
I have screenshotted what works for me, just in case you can replicate this on your router. In my heart I feel there must be a way to get the u-tec locks talking to the router properly. In my case, I had to use bridges, but at the same time, I also had Z-Wave linking to my Hubitat, so I didn’t care as much.
Hi @Scott4 thanks for the flag. Coincidentally I am also running Unifi gear and only set to 2.4g as well. I’ll review any other settings but I don’t see anything immediately jumping out.
@Eli egarding the request to file a ticket, I don’t know what that will do. Why isn’t there support pages to help us figure this out? I’m running up to date firmware, my network is not the issue as no other devices have problems, etc. Frustrating and makes me wonder what other options are out there.
I did have a bridge that Support replaced for me, as I had one out of like 8 units that just refused to stay connected. QC is not what it should be, so maybe you have bad hardware. At least make them put money where their mouth is. Start with one lock and get it replaced. See what happens.
FWIW I am using many different VLANs on my U6E. UDMSE and enterprise poe 8 holding it all together.
I agree! All you ever see from U-tec support here is “submit a ticket”, and we’ll help you. Why can’t they give you suggestions to try here on the forum, so that everyone has an opportunity to see the possible solutions. The forum members don’t get to see the whatever help if any is given to the customers who do submit a ticket, so how do they benefit?
Even though I think U-tec makes a quality product, there are enough issues with their locks that are brought up here, that are not answered here, that I would not recommend the products for this reason alone.
Great points Dustin - I agree. U-Tec is welcome to make some suggestions on this thread.
Other frustrations include inability to schedule lock functionality, e.g. pass through mode from 8am-5pm, auto lock otherwise. It’s been coming for months.
I have two more Latch 5s sitting on my desk that I think I’m just going to return as I don’t see the network issues resolving nor do I see features being pushed out.
