Yale Secure

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I purchased a Yale lock based on the fact that my girlfriend wanted it. I had already heard not so great reviews and knowing my girlfriend and tech, it’s buy first learn about it later. I shouldn’t have let the Yale on my radar but I took a chance because I was not impressed with another companies smart lock. At first the Yale was well actually okay, not great but definitely not trash. However the quality of this app has deteriorated since the time I got it many other small flaws that I’d ignore. I understand that tech has hiccups and can malfunction. it’s a rollercoaster things get bad then bug fixes hopefully make them better, I been trying to be fair and assume it’s probably compatibility issues with iOS 13 that haven’t been smoothed out but as of now the lock not only doesn’t show up for HomeKit which HomeKit itself is another can of worms. Now The Yale doesn’t even show up for its own app or WiFi. This has been this way for quite some time and no end in sight. If I wanted a lock with only a numeric pad and no other features I would have stayed with my regular dinosaur age lock and key. I miss my remote access and ability to check an receive notifications about my door. Well hopefully the Yale team can get this situated soon but until then I feel disappointed and like I’ve wasted my hard earned money

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Like other reviewers I have been having problems with my Yale YRD156 lock since I updated my devices to IOS13. That is all behind me now that I purchased the August module for the lock. Unfortunately I had to spend another $100 on the fix but the lock now works as expected. I even have the ability to create temp codes that last only for the time period set and can add/remove codes away from home, which I have tested. Fortunately I now have a smart lock that gives me all the notifications I set as well as Homekit integration. There is also the fact that I now have an app that WORKS!!! I should not have had to make another purchase but for me it has been worth it. This app still gets a zero but we can’t give zeros.

The app is finally usable again in iOS 13. I can now properly check the lock settings and now have access to the PINs saved on it and can label them and view their usage history. I was also able to update the firmware are on my lock. Not giving it five stars because the post-firmware usage is a bit clunky for a minute or two. I couldn’t read settings until I waited about two minutes and the app didn’t tell me anything about a wait time after the update. It eventually worked, though. Also, the UI could be better. It’s the same as it’s been for at least a year, and it’s definitely not the worst interface, but it could be a bit more user friendly.

It is not ideal, but while we wait for Yale to get their act together, you can simply add the word “Yale” to the name of your lock in HomeKit and it will reappear in the Yale app. For example: I named the room “Front Door” and I re-named the lock “Yale Lock.” Functionality wise, this hasn’t changed a thing for me. I can still tell Siri to lock or unlock the “front door” and it knows what I mean because of the name of the room. But still, get your stuff together, Yale!!! It’s insane that we need to figure this out with no help from you.

* Nov 28, 2019: 70 days since iOS 13 release and the update from Yale says bug fix... Which bug? The support for this app is really poor. However the latest release did allow the locks to be named other than their default name. Everything seems to work although the app is really slow, much slower than in prior versions.