Feature Rich but Disappointing (Updated)
Update: After two weeks of technical support with Lockly, we were able to resolve the issue. Base level of support was still pretty confused about KB articles but once I got to the engineering team, things started moving in the right direction. I still don't know what the issue was completely. They said they changed things on the backend but it didn't work (or at least immediately). From my perspective, once I got the latest Lockly update, the locks started working really smoothly. All features are now accessible. I'm changing my original rating from 3 to a 5 star review because with access to all of the features, things are incredibly smooth and the engineering team at Lockly were persistent and fast, all things considered. ------------------------------------- So there were good and bad things about the lock. Note that I got 3 for my house and not the largest house. I've always had strong WiFi signal to the edge of my property. Pros: - Feature rich. The unlocking options from fingerprint scanning to facial recognition to the Apple Home Key were awesome. It's cool being able to walk up to my door and the facial recognition will immediately unlock the door by the time you reach for the handle. - PIN Genie Keypad. Some people don't like it but I personally do. I like that it basically scrambles the number so you're never pressing the same buttons. Although not the most intuitive, it's a valuable security feature. - Physical Key. A physical key was important to me. Some locks uses a proprietary key or it's unclear that you could rekey it. Lockly uses a Schlage style lock so you can rekey it to any Schlage lock. We got all of our locks keyed alike at a local locksmith pretty quickly. - Installation was a breeze. I got all 3 physically installed in about 30 minutes. It was straightforward and only requires a flathead and a phillips screwdriver. Cons: - WiFi connectivity is unstable. This is the crux of my issues with the Visage Zeno. Setting up all 3 were fine but out of the 3 I've installed, 1 only holds a connection and that's only semi reliable. The other 2 can't hold a connection with WiFi at all. I've tried changing my network around to be only 2.4Ghz, and tried different access points (Netgear Orbi, Netgear Nighthawk, Linksys, and Ubiquiti) with different configurations and it never worked. Since certain features like the air transfer feature (the feature where you can copy credentials for a family member) rely on the WiFi connection, it makes this value proposition useless. This is important because Air Transfer is the only way you can duplicate access codes or else the system won't let you do duplicate access codes even if it's for the same person since the app sees every individual profile as a unique user. - Lockly help guides are lacking. It seems like the Visage Zeno is too new and none of the help guides were geared towards this model. It felt like I was trying to translate the KB articles rather than being led towards the right direction. - Support was lackluster. I appreciate them trying to help but I had to call back several times before getting to someone. If you're put on hold for too long, they'll point you towards a voicemail but not call back. Once I started talking to someone, they were clearly running through their KB articles. For instance, they were telling me to hit the reset pin at the bottom with a paper clip but the reset button on the Visage Zeno was moved from the bottom to next to the battery. So far, support hasn't been able to solve my problem. Verdict: We decided to keep the lock because the facial recognition and other access features since we won't have too many guests. It's just that we lost anything that comes with WiFi so guest codes, adding family members (easily - we had to setup my significant other manually on each lock), remote unlock/lock, changing auto-lock settings, Air Transfer, etc. If you don't care about some of the WiFi features and you're okay manually setting people up at each lock, then it's worth it because of the amount of access features. Without the WiFi, I don't think it's worth the $350, especially if you have a lot of guests. Read more
