I’ve had two Ultraloq U-Bolt Pros (with Wifi) for about a year now, and am tired of the terrible battery life (one door lasts about a month, the other less-used door maybe 2-4 months) and having to throw away so many. I’ve seen a lot of threads and reviews mentioning how much this eats batteries and it seems like there’s not much to do about it.
What I haven’t seen is any clear consensus on rechargeable batteries. I know that Ultraloq says not to use rechargeable (NiMH) batteries, but has anyone actually tried them? How well do they work? I understand that these have 1.2v which might be a problem; but I’ve also seen a number of 1.5v lithium ion rechargeable batteries - has anyone tried those? I’d try myself, but I don’t actually have any rechargeable batteries, so I was hoping someone else could tell me if they’d even work before I go out and buy some (especially if rechargeable lithium ion, which are pretty expensive).
I imagine the “low battery” alert won’t work, but if I don’t mind recharging them on a schedule to compensate, even if it’s every month or more.
@Robert26 We are so sorry for all these inconvenience caused.
We actually don’t recommend using the rechargeable batteries for the smart lock. When it begins to fall, it will fall too quickly.
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I exclusively use rechargeable batteries in both of my Pro’s and have had great luck with them. I have had issues with the Amazon brand batteries in my OTHER locks but these U-Bolt Pro’s have taken everything I’ve used in them like a champ. My personal favorite for these locks are EBL Pro’s 1.2v 2800mAh NiMH batteries. A close second are Deleepow 1.2v 3300MaH NiMH batteries and my third is the Amazon 1.2v. They’re rechargeable and the locks warn me when they’re getting low. They run for months without issue and with the heat where I live, batteries outside die quickly. None of the batteries I use are incredibly expensive btw. I DO have one set of MXBatt 1.5v 3500mWh rechargeable lithiums and those do work but I wouldnt say they are any better than the EBL’s. - which are only about $15-20 for 8 batteries. I have multiple smart locks and have tested at least a dozen brands I no longer use. They all have their tricks with batteries but these seem to work well with the U-Bolt.
Thanks for the detailed recommendations. I took a look into some of those batteries, but in the end decided that this lock wasn’t worth all of the hassle. Even with rechargeable batteries, I’d still have to charge it every month. In fact, we were out of town for a few weeks and that didn’t improve the battery life, which means it just drains the battery a lot while just sitting there doing nothing. On top of that, the fingerprint scanner typically requires 1-10 tries, the app often won’t connect or is slow to connect, the lock sometimes freezes and requires taking out the batteries to restart, guests get confused by the hard-to-read “ultraloq” button, and more.
If it helps anyone else, we replaced them with Eufy s230 locks, which are much better. They look nicer, the fingerprint scanner works 100% of the time, the app is more responsive, it’s got a built-in rechargeable battery, hasn’t frozen, doesn’t require those little sensors for autolock, and just seems to be a lot better overall. They claim the battery lasts a whole year - I doubt it’s that long, but even if it’s a 3-4 months that’s a lot better than 3-4 weeks. Unfortunately, I now have these two Ultraloqs that I wasted money on.
I’ll weigh in here to see if it helps anyone else.
I run a hotel (a series of a dozen cabins). I moved to these ULTRALOQ Latch 5 Smart Lock. I have 11 of these locks in use right now. I have both the thumb print kind with wifi 6 and the NFC that does wifi 5.
Let me start by saying that I’ve been super impressed with the tech support. Spent a lot of time with them sorting out issues. In short, make sure you have batteries with a good charge and you won’t have issues.
You’ll know when the batteries get low when the locks occasionally start dropping connection. (I use the Air app in the web browser). The batteries will still show medium, but may be at the low end. Unfortunately the Air app will not give battery percentages.
I ate a ton of batteries at first. Even the ultraloq branded batteries didn’t make it 2 to 3 months on average.
I swapped all my locks over to EBL AA Rechargeable Batteries 1.2V 2500mAh. I’ve been using them for 8 months. I found that some locks will start dying around 5 weeks and others will make it to 2 months. (this is regular daily use as a hotel). My policy became to change all the batteries out every month. I’ve noticed no issues with these batteries.
Recently I’ve begun testing EBL Rechargeable AA Batteries Lithium with Charger, 3000mWh 1.5V Double A Lithium ion Battery. I have them in 4 locks. My hope is to find something that will reliably live longer than a month. So far I’ve been using them for 6 weeks and they all still show “high” battery. However, this is the nature of LiIon batteries. They show full until they die suddenly. So I’m just waiting for them to die and see what average life is.
Unfortunately you can’t use a battery tester on them to test battery life since they are a 3.6v battery that is stepped down to 1.5v.
If you do go with rechargeable batteries make sure the batteries are physically the same size as standard batteries as they can be larger and thus not fit in the lock. Otherwise, you’re good to go.
