Four Months, Two Apartments, One Smart Lock Decision: August Wi-Fi vs Schlage Encode
I lived with the August Wi-Fi Smart Lock for four months in a Chicago apartment, and then I moved to a Boston apartment and replaced it with the Schlage Encode Wi-Fi Deadbolt, and what I learned from the two side by side is not what the spec sheets suggest. The August is the lock everyone has heard of, the one with the round puck on the inside of the door, the one that promises to install in 10 minutes and to never make you carry a key again. The Schlage Encode is the lock nobody talks about, the one that looks like a normal deadbolt, the one that the building supply store stocks next to the regular Schlage. Both are smart locks. Both connect to Wi-Fi. Both let you lock and unlock your door from your phone. The differences are in the details the spec sheets do not list: how each lock installs, how each one fails, what happens when the battery dies, and what the landlord sees at move-out. What I want to do is walk through the differences that actually mattered in real apartments with real doors and real landlords, and the moment I realized that the lock I thought I wanted was not the lock I actually wanted.
The reason I am writing this is that I watched two neighbors in the Boston building make the same lock choice I was about to make. One was happy and the other was not, and the difference between the two came down to features that do not show up on the Amazon page. Those features are what made me keep the Schlage and return the August. If you are trying to decide between the two, or between the August and any of the other smart locks that look similar, the rest of this guide is what I would want you to know before you order.
Four Months Ago: The August in Chicago
The August Wi-Fi Smart Lock arrived in a small box. The install was 12 minutes, which is longer than the 10 the company promises, but close. The lock attaches to the inside of the door over the existing deadbolt, which means you do not remove anything, you do not change the exterior appearance, and your landlord does not need to know you installed it. That last point is the August's most important feature and the one that does not get enough credit: it is one of the few smart locks that is fully reversible without leaving a mark on the door, which makes it one of the most renter-friendly smart locks on the market.
The features worked. The app opened, the lock paired over Bluetooth first and then Wi-Fi, and I could lock and unlock the door from anywhere. The auto-unlock feature, which detects when you approach the door and unlocks it for you, worked about 80 percent of the time. The 20 percent when it did not work was usually when I was carrying groceries in both hands, which is exactly when the auto-unlock is most useful, and which is when the failure is most annoying. The failure mode was that the door would not auto-unlock, and I would have to put down the groceries, get out my phone, open the app, and tap unlock. The fallback for the failure was the same as the no-smart-lock option, which is to use the physical key.
The battery life was the surprise. The August uses four AA batteries, and the company claims 3 to 6 months of battery life. I got 2.5 months before the low-battery warning, and 3 months before the batteries died. The dying was not gradual. The lock worked one day, the next morning it would not respond to the app, and the only way to get in was the physical key, which I had stopped carrying because I thought I did not need it. The lesson is that the August's battery life is closer to 2.5 months in real use than 6 months in marketing copy, and the failure is sudden.
The Before Metrics: What I Was Tracking
I tracked four things in the Chicago apartment. The first was the number of times I got locked out, which was 3 times in 4 months, and all 3 times were because I had not brought the physical key and the auto-unlock failed. The second was the number of times the app failed to connect, which was about 8 times in 4 months, and which usually resolved by closing the app and reopening it, which is the kind of fix that works on the third try but not on the first. The third was the number of times the lock did not respond to the auto-lock at night, which was 4 times in 4 months, and which I usually noticed at 11 PM when I was already in bed and the only way to verify the door was locked was to get up and check. The fourth was the noise, which was a faint high-pitched whine when the motor was running, and which I could hear from the bedroom when the lock was engaging, and which I never got used to.
The other metric I was tracking was the relationship with my landlord. The August is reversible, which meant I could remove it and reinstall the original deadbolt in 12 minutes when I moved out, and the door would look exactly as it did when I moved in. That part worked exactly as promised. The landlord did not notice the lock at the move-out walkthrough, which is the only metric that matters for a renter. If your landlord notices the smart lock at move-out, the conversation goes badly, and the security deposit is at risk. The August is the only smart lock where that conversation cannot happen, because the lock is invisible from the outside.
What I Actually Changed: The Schlage Encode in Boston
When I moved to Boston, I ordered the Schlage Encode Wi-Fi Deadbolt because the building supply store in the neighborhood stocked it and I could install it the same day. The Schlage is a full deadbolt replacement, which means the exterior appearance of the door changes, and which means the installation is more involved, and which means the lock is not as renter-friendly as the August. The Schlage is also the lock my landlord had pre-installed in three of the four apartments in the building, which means it is the lock the landlord expects to see, which means the move-out walkthrough is going to find a Schlage regardless of what I do, which removed the renter-friendly argument for the August in this specific apartment.
The install took 35 minutes, which is longer than the August's 12, and which requires a screwdriver and a tape measure and the patience to line up the deadbolt with the door frame. The Schlage does not use the existing deadbolt, which means the install is not reversible, and which means when I move out I will need to reinstall the Schlage that the landlord originally had, which is sitting in my closet. The fact that the landlord had a Schlage as the original lock is the reason the Schlage Encode worked in this apartment, and the reason the August would have worked in the Chicago apartment. The two locks are right for different apartments.
The features worked. The Schlage has a keypad on the outside, which means I can give a 4-digit code to a dog-walker or a contractor without giving them a key or a phone login, and which means the physical key is a fallback instead of a primary. The keypad also solved the locked-out problem: even if the app fails, the keypad still works. The app failed about 2 times in the first 4 months, compared with about 8 times for the August in Chicago. The auto-lock worked reliably, and the Schlage's built-in door position sensor made the lock status more accurate than the August's app-based status. The August does have a DoorSense sensor, but it is a separate piece you mount on the door frame, and it can be less reliable if it is not aligned perfectly.
The After Metrics: What the Schlage Did Better (and Worse)
The metrics for the Schlage in the first 4 months are: zero lockouts, because the keypad is always there; 2 app failures, both resolved by closing and reopening; zero missed auto-locks at night, because the position sensor is reliable; zero noise, because the Schlage's motor is quieter; and one issue, which is that the batteries died after 5.5 months, and which is the same kind of sudden-death pattern the August had, just 2.5 months later. The longer battery life is the Schlage's main win, and the failure mode is the same.
The Schlage is also louder on the outside, because the keypad makes a beep when you press the buttons, and the beep is audible from inside the apartment. The beep is intentional, because the design is to let you hear the lock engage and disengage, but the beep is loud enough that I can hear it from the bedroom at night, and which is the same complaint I had about the August's motor whine, just from a different source. The Schlage is also larger on the outside, because the keypad takes up more space than a keyhole, and which means the door looks more like a smart-lock door, which is the renter-friendly concern that the August's design avoids.
The integration with the rest of the smart home is the second Schlage win, but the difference is smaller than the spec sheets suggest. Both the August Wi-Fi Smart Lock and the Schlage Encode work with Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and Apple HomeKit. The August Wi-Fi Smart Lock has built-in Wi-Fi, so it does not require the August Connect bridge; the Connect bridge was for older August models that did not have Wi-Fi built in. The Schlage is still the simpler system because the keypad and the lock are one unit, and because the Schlage responds slightly faster to voice commands in my apartment. But the $60 bridge comparison in most reviews is outdated for the current August Wi-Fi model.
What Stayed the Same: The Hidden Cost of Half-Fixing It
The feature that stayed the same in both locks is the one that nobody talks about: what happens when the Wi-Fi goes out. Both locks have a physical key as a fallback. The Schlage Encode also has a 9V battery jump start on the outside, which I tested once by holding a 9V battery against two contacts on the lock. That gives the keypad enough power to accept a code even if the internal batteries are dead. The August does not have a 9V jump start, because the August does not have an outside keypad; if the August batteries die, the physical key is the fallback. The two locks fail differently, and the difference matters if you are the kind of person who stops carrying a key.
The other feature that stayed the same is the price. The August Wi-Fi Smart Lock retails for about $229 and the Schlage Encode retails for about $249, a $20 difference that does not matter at this price point. The August Wi-Fi Smart Lock has built-in Wi-Fi, so it does not need the August Connect bridge. The pricing is close enough that the decision should come down to the install type, the failure mode, and the renter-friendliness, not the price.
The One Number That Made the Decision for Me
The number that flipped my decision was the install time difference multiplied by the move frequency. I move every 18 months on average, which means the 35-minute Schlage install and the 35-minute Schlage uninstall is 70 minutes of work per move, and the 12-minute August install and 12-minute August uninstall is 24 minutes of work per move. The difference is 46 minutes per move, or about 31 minutes per year at my move frequency. That is not the deciding factor. The deciding factor was the move-out walkthrough. The August leaves no trace, the Schlage leaves a different lock on the door than the one the landlord had, and the conversation with the landlord at the end of the lease is the moment I am willing to trade 31 minutes a year to avoid.
If I were not moving again, the Schlage would be the clear winner, because the keypad, the longer battery life, the better app reliability, and the voice assistant integration without a bridge add up to a better daily-use lock. If I were moving in 6 months, the August would be the clear winner, because the 46-minute savings times the higher move frequency is real, and because the renter-friendly argument is the strongest feature the August has. The lock I keep is the one that matches my apartment, not the one that matches the reviews. The reviews are written by people who live in the apartment they review from, and the apartment is the variable that changes the answer.
If You Are Choosing Between the Two (or Any Other Smart Lock)
Three questions decide the lock. The first is whether your landlord has a specific opinion about the lock, which is rare but happens in some buildings, and which removes the renter-friendly calculation. The second is whether you will move within 12 months, because the install/uninstall time matters more in the first year, and which favors the August. The third is whether you will use the keypad to give codes to other people, which is the feature the Schlage has and the August does not have a direct equivalent for, and which is the feature that matters most if you have a dog-walker, a contractor, or a guest who needs access while you are at work.
If the answer to all three is "I do not know," the Schlage is the safer default, because the Schlage works as a regular deadbolt with a keypad and a physical key if the smart features fail. The August is still usable with the physical key and the manual thumb turn, but it depends on the existing deadbolt and the phone app for most of its smart features. The Schlage is the more conservative choice. The August is the more reversible choice. The two locks are not competing for the same use case, which is the conclusion I wish the spec sheets had told me when I started shopping.
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