These locks are pretty cool. If you want to be able to lock or unlock your door remotely, these are a great deal for the money. You have to know how to set up an automated system using something like a Nest controller because I don’t offer that service, too many bugs right now and I hate callbacks. That said, these locks are great and easy to install with a few caveats:
When you install these, read the directions and don’t skip a step. If you force the bolt over before putting the batteries in to check the alignment you might mess up the gears in the lock. I don’t know if it came messed up from the factory or not but I recently spent an hour learning how these locks work inside and out because the lock was making a terrible grinding noise after the bolt retracted. When I took the servo housing apart I found that one of the gears was sitting out of its housing and was rotating over another gear it was supposed to mate with. I am going to make a youtube video of the problem and how to fix it because I am sure I am not the only person with this problem.
Anyway, this might have been avoided if I had followed the instructions. The last two I installed went flawlessly because the first time the bolt was extended was after I put the code in. You have to let the deadbolt extend the bolt the first time. A big issue with these is strike placement. You always want a deadbolt strike to be perfectly aligned so that you don’t have to push or pull on the door to get the bolt to extend properly. It is especially important with this lock because it has a battery-powered motor which might fail if it encounters unnecessary resistance.
Schlage’s old BE365 was nice because it had no motorized parts. There was very little that could go wrong. The few times I have seen them fail was due to corrosion because one was installed on a cedar fence gate without any sort of sealant (I would apply silicone sealant liberally in this application) and also an amateur installation where somebody routed the signal cables through the door near moving parts so that they wore down with use and wore right through the copper wires.
Schlage came out with a very good replacement, the BE375. It is all of the best things the BE365 had but updated with a touchscreen. It isn’t networked yet. It doesn’t have a motor but is clutched, so it will be working long after the BE469NX’s motor has bit the dust. It has no key override, making it a very difficult lock to pick indeed! Perhaps it is the first lock Schlage has ever offered that is truly bump-proof. In the event that the batteries in it die despite numerous warnings it will give you for weeks beforehand, you can stick a 9-volt battery on the outside of the lock to temporarily give it enough electricity to open. It remains to be seen what will happen if somebody connects a car battery to the leads on the lock. History has shown that providing a power sink on a lock introduces vulnerabilities like spiking power to the device causing it to open. This worked on certain safes from years ago when electronic safe locks first made their appearance on the market. Now safe lock manufacturers have wizened up and no amount of amperage will open a good safe lock (unless it is connected to a cutting torch or angle grinder or drill).
