Every Monday, Paula Light, with her The Monday Peeve prompt, gives us an opportunity to vent or rant about something that pisses us off. My peeve today is: batteries that don’t last.
I have an August Home WiFi-enabled smart lock on my front door. It’s a pretty neat little device. Installing it on my front door was a piece of cake, taking less than 30 minutes from start to finish. Now I never need a key to lock or unlock my front door. I have an app on my iPhone that I can use to unlock and lock my front door at the touch of a finger. It even recognizes me if I’m outside and within 10 feet of the front door and it automatically unlocks as I approach it without my even having to use my iPhone. It’s like magic.
One of the reason I got the August Home smart lock is because my son has one at his place and he loves it. And I love mine as well. Except that its battery life sucks.
I received an email notification on Saturday that my August Home smart lock batteries at my front door “are almost completely drained. Please change them immediately.” I had gotten a similar email on September 5th and changed the batteries then, less than two months ago!
My son says the batteries on his August Home smart lock last for almost a year, so why were mine burning out after not even two months?
I found the answer when I Googled “August Home battery life.” It seems that since my son bought his smart lock, the engineers at August introduced a new model, which is the one I purchased. It’s the first August model with the CR123 battery. The team at August estimates the lock’s batteries should last three to six months, versus the longer lifespan of six months to a year promised for the older, AA battery models.
I wouldn’t even mind if the batteries lasted three to six months, especially since two CR123 batteries cost about the same as a dozen AA batteries. But two months? Seriously?
The first thought I had after finding out that the latest, “new and improved” model of the August Home smart lock’s performance, at least from a battery life perspective, was that the August Home engineers and WordPress happiness engineers have a lot in common when it comes to introducing new features and functionality.
This, That, and the Other 
I can get into my house without my keys, as I have a garage door opener device located out front which opens if you press the right code. I don’t think it would work if the batteries ran low, but so far, I have never changed them.
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They make more money by selling more batteries, in this scenario they are more like Apple!
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Planned, created obsolescence! Should be illegal!! 🤬
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I know the problem Fan. You bought the wrong lock.
I am told the September Home lock is much more reliable
Avoid the April lock though. No-one seems to be able to get into their house on the 1st. Must be some glitch in the programming. Dunno.?…..
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Yeah, it’s that time of the month.
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Just avoid April. Not a good buy……
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Could you use rechargeable batteries?
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Hmm. I might have to look into that.
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Try heavy duty batteries instead of alkaline. Heavy duty last longer at a slow drain. They’re recommended for things like smoke alarms and most will last six months in a similar application. (I worked in batteries for seven years)
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These batteries are lithium, not alkaline, if that makes a difference. How did it feel to work inside batteries? Musta been a tight squeeze! 😉
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Oh boy! 2 months is not long at all for them to last! I’d be annoyed if i had to keep changing them!
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Changing them so often is frustrating. And if they are lithium batteries they are even more pricey.
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