Yale Assure Lock 2 review: Great design, but a buggy app

Revamped and redesigned, Yale’s Guarantee Lock 2 is likely one of the best-looking good locks available on the market, and it’s additionally among the many most versatile in relation to third-party good dwelling help.

Sadly, Yale’s newest good lock is comparatively costly, and the producer’s refreshed app stays saddled with bugs and a complicated setup course of.

We’re nonetheless recommending the Guarantee Lock 2, however the lackluster app retains Yale’s newest lock from being a slam-dunk.

This evaluate is a part of TechHive’s in-depth protection of the best smart locks.

Does the Yale Guarantee Lock 2 supply variations with keyholes and keypads?

The Guarantee Lock 2’s exterior escutcheon–a slim rectangular block smaller than a deck of enjoying playing cards–is especially noteworthy, that includes rounded corners and an uncluttered glass show that conceals a touch-sensitive numeric keypad. 

I examined the keyless touchscreen model of the Yale Guarantee Lock 2, which sells for $260 when bundled with the optionally available Yale Wi-Fi Sensible Module. A Bluetooth-only touchscreen mannequin is accessible for $180 in each keyed and keyless flavors.

Yale

An alternate mannequin with a bodily push-button keypad is accessible for $160 (once more, in each keyed and key-free variations), or $240 with the Wi-Fi module.

Three end choices–black, bronze, and nickel–can be found for every design. All the designs embody a 9-volt emergency terminal recessed beneath the keypad.

Inside the home, the unit isn’t fairly as horny, providing a big black motor unit with a hefty thumbturn. 

What are the Yale Guarantee Lock 2’s battery necessities?

Whereas most good locks have their 4 AA batteries aligned all in a row, the Guarantee Lock 2 stacks the batteries on high of one another in units of two. This makes the inside escutcheon a bit thicker, standing out from the door by about 2 inches, although the general peak and width (5 x 3 inches) of the unit is kind of compact.

Yale hasn’t modified up the set up course of a lot. An inside mounting plate attaches to the outside escutcheon with two bolts; quite a few sizes are included to accommodate completely different door thicknesses. The motor unit connects through a single cable, then screws on to the mounting plate. The 2 small screws used for the motor’s attachment are conveniently pre-installed within the housing unit to allow them to’t be misplaced. 

Yale

Close to the thumbturn you’ll additionally discover a “passage button,” one other good comfort. Press this button when the lock is open and it’ll briefly disable any automated locking timers you will have set till the door is locked manually. 

The LED beneath the thumbturn is meant to repeatedly flash pink when passage mode is enabled, however mine didn’t.

Does the Yale Guarantee Lock 2 include its personal app?

Yale has additionally switched up its software program, which is now on its third cellular app incarnation: Yale Entry. The excellent news is that little has modified for the reason that final spherical of Yale apps. The unhealthy information is that the app remains to be buggy and in want of polish. 

For instance, the app crashed throughout a firmware replace, then hung once more throughout a easy PIN creation motion. 

Typically, the app is sluggish to attach and to reply, even to fundamental instructions, and it does a poor job of strolling the consumer by means of setup. 

Whereas the app imports your present Yale account info, I discovered there was no approach to delete an historic (and lengthy disposed of) lock that I had by no means faraway from the app and which is now interminably caught in “Connecting…” mode. 

Notably, the app didn’t immediate me to arrange Wi-Fi for the lock, as an alternative defaulting to a Bluetooth-only connection till I dug into the settings to seek out the Wi-Fi configuration routine (solely 2.4GHz is supported). Nor did it ask me to arrange a grasp PIN upon first use, once more a weird scenario that simply doesn’t make any sense.

Christopher Null/Foundry

Does the Yale Guarantee Lock 2 help Alexa, Google Dwelling, and Apple HomeKit?

Again on the plus facet, the Yale Guarantee Lock 2 helps a variety of third-party good dwelling platforms, together with HomeKit, Alexa, and Google Assistant–that’s, assuming you opted for the Guarantee Lock 2 that’s bundled with the Wi-Fi module. 

Assist for Z-Wave and Matter are each coming quickly, although you’ll must swap out the prevailing Wi-Fi module at a later date to allow these protocols.

With out the module, the Guarantee Lock 2 solely works with HomeKit, through Bluetooth.

The lock’s remaining options are commonplace however stable. A vast variety of customers and PINs may be added. Auto-locking may be set to kick in anyplace from 10 seconds to half-hour, and a geofencing auto-unlocking system can also be included. An optionally available magnetic sensor included within the field permits you to add door open/shut sensing to the lock, so it gained’t try and lock when ajar. And you probably have any of the above famous good dwelling platforms, you possibly can carry out fundamental lock/unlock features through voice.

All the above labored pretty properly in my testing, apart from the occasional app hiccup.

Is the Yale Guarantee Lock 2 well worth the money?

At $260 with all of the bells and whistles, the Yale Guarantee 2 isn’t low-cost, and even probably the most fundamental bodily keypad mannequin fetches a cool $160. Including Matter help will price one other $80 for the brand new wi-fi module when it turns into out there.

Yale additionally must spend extra time squashing the bugs within the Yale Entry app, in addition to streamlining the setup course of.

Nonetheless, the excellent design plus the big range of good dwelling help earns the Guarantee Lock 2 our suggestion.