I just wanted to give a quick update on my issues with the four Schlage BE469 locks. I posted a lot of data in previous posts, but the bottom line is the Schlage locks do not work properly when using a range extender. Two of my locks are a "direct path" to the ISY and they work 100% of the time. Never a problem. Two of them using range extenders (name your brand, I've got Aeotec, Dome, Gen7, Gen6, Inovelli) are totally unreliable. They work some of the time if I reset them by taking the battery out. But not for 24 hours in a row. I've created what I believe is a robust mesh by adding up to 12 range extenders, and the lock still doesn't work all the time all the time. The Z-Wave toolkit I purchased show 100% rock solid links to every device in my mesh all the time, except the locks.... I then tried one RE inline to make a point to point path. That doesn't work either. 

So I still want to use the locks, and at this time I have not found a suitable replacement that will work on my network and not need connectivity to the cloud. My solution is to put an ISY close to each lock I want to control.  While this is not ideal, it solves the problem and gets me out of the mode of fixing something beyond my control. Yesterday I spent four hours running an ethernet cable next to one of the problem locks. It works now as it should. I'm going to buy one more ISY for my other "problem" doors to solve that problem. 

While this seems like a band aid, it is. But... for $200 each it will work. And, if I look at the time I've spent on this, I could have bought many many ISY's for the hours I've spent on something that should have been a plug and play.

I have been in contact with Schlage, but I've only reached low level customer service and tech support. Somewhere in that company must be an engineer who probably makes $75k per year that fully knows they have issues, but is not addressing it. That's too bad, because I suspect the fix is a few lines of code... And... when you call them up, the first thing you hear is "your time is important to us". But it takes ten additional minutes to get a human online who then reads some boiler plate document about what you are doing wrong... Maybe the CEO ought to try calling tech support....

Anyway, that's it for my Sunday rant. The one in this pic works great.... Three feet away.....

Wayne

 

@wdhille Thanks very much for keeping us updated on your "expedition".  For the longest time I have wanted to incorporate smart locks.  Not wanting the cloud  or headaches like you I have avoided it.  As a side note, I have tried several different extenders.  Even though they are ZWave certified compatible, they do not all perform the same.  Best of luck..

The only way I got them to wok was with an external antenna with a slight gain on the 300 series board. I had it “pointed” at my 2 schlage deadbolts.

I had a lot of issues with my BE469 locks initially. Which firmware are you running on the locks? I have locks with 5.6 and 5.8 versions of the firmware and they work much better. As for range extenders, I've had very good luck with the latest Aeotec range extenders. They are version 5 or something. My ISY is in the basement and I have one BE469 lock on my front door that's about 40 feet away from the ISY with a range extender in the middle and it works 100% of the time. I'm also running the latest 500 Z-wave module in my ISY. Hope this info helps.

Hart2Hart: My initial thought was an external antenna. I don't believe the ISY's with the newest boards support an external antenna. I still believe though that would have solved my problem since I need a direct connection to the ISY. In my youth (20's and 30's...) I did a lot of RF work, and I am sure these antennas are about as good as a wet noodle, as the saying goes. And put the wet noodle in a metal door, I suspect we're down 20-30 dB from an isotropic source... But since I can't find any pattern testing on this stuff, I'm making that up. 

stre: When I first got the locks I asked about updated firmware. Apparently that's not possible... The four locks I have are two years old. Two years of pain and torture trying to get them all to work reliably. I am 100% convinced the issue is with their firmware. Guaranteed. I spent the last 30 years doing stuff like this... Failure to admit there is an issue is not a recipe for increased sales and profits....

I think Schlage will be sending me two updated locks with the latest firmware. While I'm not thrilled with their product, I don't think we have many options, and I'll give them a lot of kudos if they send me two new locks. 

In the mean time... I ordered my third ISY this afternoon. Three ISY's will cover the four locks. 

BTW, my second ISY that is less than five feet from the door lock is 100% reliable all the time. 

Wayne

Some people got carried away with external antennas and thought the higher the gain the better. They didn’t realize high gain created signal strength that was directional. They about drove UD staff out of their minds complaining. Not speaking for UD but it may have be part of reason it was removed in new board and maybe something to do with zwave standards. I worked with new board for two weeks and could not get it reliable. I dropped back to older firmware and board and am 100% reliable again.

Looked to see if their was a way to solder a connector to new board but decided I’d just stay put until Polisy with its Zwave interface arrives. Also looked at Schlage Encode but it doesn’t have a reachable local or cloud api. If that happens, I’d drop Zwave in a heartbeat.

Well... higher gain is probably not what you want for a mesh network. I'm my case, I want point to point to the darn lock.... And as you said... gain is not free... increased gain in one direction costs you... 

Now maybe we need an antenna that has electronic beam steering and the antenna is electronically pointed to the node the hub wants to talk to..... I'm saying that jokingly, but we have the technology.... and it would work.... might cost more than the current hubs though.....

Have you by any chance ever used Home Assistant?

Set it up up a small Zwave Network and you can do things with the Schlage lock you couldn’t imagine were possible. With the following integration installed, you can setup up to 30 users, such as your family, housekeeping, pet sitters, etc.  All using date/time access schemes and programmable from a web UI.  You will never have to use the Schlage programming scheme again.

 

Keymaster Integration

 

 

5 minutes ago, fasttimes said:

Have you by any chance ever used Home Assistant?

Set it up up a small Zwave Network and you can do things with the Schlage lock you couldn’t imagine were possible. With the following integration installed, you can setup up to 30 users, such as your family, housekeeping, pet sitters, etc.  All using date/time access schemes and programmable from a web UI.  You will never have to use the Schlage programming scheme again.

 

Keymaster Integration

 

 

You should be able to do the same with the isy

They implemented Zwave lock support?

1 hour ago, fasttimes said:

They implemented Zwave lock support?

What do you mean? The isy has always supported locks since they implemented zwave support

With lock management and scheduling?

With lock management and scheduling?

1 hour ago, fasttimes said:

With lock management and scheduling?

That is correct

Could you point me to any documentation on this?

It's in the same section that you put your user codes

@fasttimes, these dialogue boxes are what the "Options" and "Users" buttons at the bottom of the pane produce.

I have two Schlage BE-468 locks that use to work fine with my 8 year old ISY994ir and a newer 500 series Z-Wave Dongle. My Z-Wave dongle became unresponsive so I purchased a new ISY994ir ZW+. With the new dongle I am only able to include my back door and not the front. My ISY994 is downstairs so not that close. I am going to try and add a few extenders to see if that might work. 

I see I am not the only one having this issue. I am sure someone at Schlage knows what the problem is.

9 hours ago, jblackst5000 said:

I see I am not the only one having this issue.

I've fiddled with my older lock (non Z-Wave +) a few times, and network wide inclusion doesn't seem to work with it, no matter how close/many repeaters are present.  I've just had to remove it from the door at take it to the ISY (within 10 feet or so, if memory serves me correctly) and include it.  I believe you can exclude it in place, however, just not include it.  This was explained to me as being part of the "S0" security that the lock/ISY employ (as a way to defeat packet sniffers, man-in-the-middle attacks, etc., during setup).  My lock is probably 75' away from my ISY.  I don't have a Z-Wave + lock, so I can't report on that.  All of my Z-Wave device that have security use "S0", so they all had to be included close to the ISY.

1 hour ago, Bumbershoot said:

I've fiddled with my older lock (non Z-Wave +) a few times, and network wide inclusion doesn't seem to work with it, no matter how close/many repeaters are present.  I've just had to remove it from the door at take it to the ISY (within 10 feet or so, if memory serves me correctly) and include it.  I believe you can exclude it in place, however, just not include it.  This was explained to me as being part of the "S0" security that the lock/ISY employ (as a way to defeat packet sniffers, man-in-the-middle attacks, etc., during setup).  My lock is probably 75' away from my ISY.  I don't have a Z-Wave + lock, so I can't report on that.  All of my Z-Wave device that have security use "S0", so they all had to be included close to the ISY.

NWI isnt supported in most non plus devices. All devices would need to be plus and support NWI for it to work. You can exclude from anywhere when a device is part of an existing network but since his is a new network, it wouldnt work.