Feedback on door locks before I buy

I am ready to get a Zwave door lock but have no idea which one to get. I have Schlage dead bolts now but can change.
So whats the good, bad and the ugly on this?

I have a Yale Real living Z-Wave deadbolt… Works great for me!

I have a Schlage deadbolt. If you are looking for something cheap that isn’t motorized, they are okay. They tend to be a pain to set up correctly with the Vera units. (A quick search of the forums will support that comment.) Because of the way that it fits together, I am also not sure how well it will stand up to the elements. The deadbolt is turned by a large knob on the front that spins freely when it is not in lock/unlock mode. It doesn’t seem like it would take much gunk getting in there before it would just be a mess. But, I have not had it long enough to know for sure.

I looked at the Kwikset locks because they were motoroized, but I didn’t like the fact that it had shared buttons for the key codes. Having shared buttons results in a significantly smaller number of possible codes. However, they seem to try to offset this by allowing longer codes.

So, in all honesty, I will probably be looking at the Yale locks for the next one I buy.

I really like my Yale… Easy to setup has been reliable. I got much better battery behavior out of the AA Lithium batteries. The ones that came initially died in a month. I put in the lithium and now on 6 months. I also have the Schlage and it has been fine as well but not a motorized deadbolt. I also like the fact I could change out the core on the yale to match the rest of my locks (Baldwin) core. (so they are all keyed the same). The Yale comes with a Kwikset by default.

I have my Kwikset locks, and no real issues, aside from the status sometimes being wrong (posted to other threads about this).

The batteries in the front door are nearly a year old, but it gets very infrequent use. Batteries in the garage door, which I use almost exclusively (single guy here though, no family), lasted around 6 months? More people means more lock movements, so battery life will go down. Kwikset will always have shorter battery life if you use the motorized deadbolt, but for me it’s sufficient.

As for number of buttons, fba is correct, they are shared. However, Kwikset allows 8 digits codes, which is 5^8=390,625 codes. Schlage allows 4 digits, which is 4^10=10,000 codes.

A thief will break down the door or break a window before they would attempt to brute-force hack the deadbolt.

I do NOT use my Kwikset locks to disarm my security system, I keep those PINs separate/unique.

Have the Kwickest Door lock and Deadbolt. They have worked very well. No complaints.

Kwikset deadbolts are nice because they have a slight taper so they can “find” the hole easier. Only dislike is I use them on some inside doors so “pulling” them shut to lock is hard. But you can take some 1" webbing and put it on the side of the door that you have to “pull” and make a little handle just before you tighten the lock together between sides. The locks don’t have anything to grab.

+1 for yale locks, works great and good build.

Linking to a previous topic.

had a shclach, sent it back, got the yale real living. LOVE IT the main difference is the motor. whats the point of being able to remotely LOCK a door if you need someone physically there turning the knob. i mean to lock the door locally on a schalch you just press a button anyway.

seen them for $200 online with the touch screen,

ok now im off to do math and put in little stupid letters to get this to post… security at the CIA is not at tight.

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  • Garrett

It looks like a toss up between kwikset and Yale. I really dislike the fact that schlage lacks a motor to move the bolt. Thanks for the input.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

[quote=“fba, post:3, topic:171358”]I have a Schlage deadbolt. If you are looking for something cheap that isn’t motorized, they are okay. They tend to be a pain to set up correctly with the Vera units. (A quick search of the forums will support that comment.) Because of the way that it fits together, I am also not sure how well it will stand up to the elements. The deadbolt is turned by a large knob on the front that spins freely when it is not in lock/unlock mode. It doesn’t seem like it would take much gunk getting in there before it would just be a mess. But, I have not had it long enough to know for sure.

I looked at the Kwikset locks because they were motoroized, but I didn’t like the fact that it had shared buttons for the key codes. Having shared buttons results in a significantly smaller number of possible codes. However, they seem to try to offset this by allowing longer codes.

So, in all honesty, I will probably be looking at the Yale locks for the next one I buy.[/quote]

Couldn’t agree more!