A nice product from a company that doesn't have great service
Let me say straight-up. this is a good lock, comparable with the Aqara U200 with which it directly competes. Where it excels is the options for entry, face unlock, fingerprint, pin code, all check! Especially the face unlock is very nice WHEN IT WORKS and it doesn't work frequently. I installed the Keypad Vision at 51 inches from base as required but it still does not always work with kids or adults regardless of distance. You can stand and then maybe wave or move back and forth and it may work but that negates the whole idea of just walking up to the door and unlock it. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way at all and is hit-or-miss 50% of the time. Night or day, the performance is the same.
Having said all that, the lock isn't bad. I like the fact that the primary battery pack is rechargeable, there's a backup battery and a backup-to-a-backup micro battery. This is great. I have not been able to determine the battery life in general since I just installed it, but coming from the original SwitchBot Lock Gen 1, this one is amazing and gets 5 stars. 3 stars for the Keypad Vision and 1 star for SwitchBot service and how they dealt with me during the purchase process. They take days to respond (on average 4 business days) and even when they do, their responses are completely unsatisfactory. They shipped the lock ONE month after I had placed the order, telling me the silver color was not in stock originally but still taking weeks to send the black one, after I told them to ship whatever they had in stock. And when no action was being taken, I got sick of their lack of service and canceled the whole order and lo and behold, the lock was shipped without warning. Bait and switch at its worst.
I am one of SwitchBot's oldest customers, I have been with them since they were just making switch robots. I have seen them grow and send their products to small time influencers on YouTube to increase their sales and marketing reach, but they claim that the lock and vision combo is out of stock. Any company that prefers influencers over customers is suspect in my books, and that is why this is my very last SwitchBot purchase. I have learned my lesson. And I am not sure if SwitchBot will even publish this review, but that's OK, I will just move it to TrustPilot as well as Amazon. Gotta have my say on a product I spent hundreds on.
