August Smart Lock After 6 Months — Is It Actually Secure?

The August Wi-Fi Smart Lock is one of the most popular smart locks ever made, and there’s a good reason for that. It installs in about 10 minutes, fits over your existing deadbolt, and lets you lock and unlock your door from literally anywhere. The app is clean. The auto-unlock feature (geo-fencing) works surprisingly well. And you keep your existing keys as backup.

But here’s the thing nobody talks about: the August doesn’t make your lock stronger. It makes your lock smarter. Those are two very different things. And after six months of daily use—plus years of picking locks as a hobby—I have opinions about what that actually means for your security.

What It Actually Feels Like to Own

The first two weeks are great. Auto-unlock detects your phone approaching and unlatches the deadbolt before you touch the door. You feel like you’re living in the future. You hand out virtual keys to family. You set it to auto-lock after 30 seconds. Life is good.

Then month two hits and you start noticing things.

The auto-unlock fails maybe 1 in 10 times. Not a dealbreaker, but annoying when you’re carrying groceries and standing at your door waiting for Bluetooth to negotiate with your phone. Battery life is decent at around four to five months on the Wi-Fi model, but when those batteries start dying, the lock gets sluggish before it warns you. The 2.4GHz Wi-Fi connection is solid in most homes, but if your router is on the other side of the house, expect occasional delays when locking remotely.

The DoorSense feature—a small magnetic sensor on the door frame—is actually one of the best parts. It tells you whether the door is physically open or closed, not just whether the deadbolt is thrown. That distinction matters more than most people realize. You can set the lock to auto-engage only when the door is actually shut, which prevents the “I locked the deadbolt but the door was cracked open” problem.

The Security Truth (A Lockpicker’s Take)

Here’s where I need to be blunt, because this is the part that separates NoPryZone from every other review site.

The August Smart Lock is only as secure as the deadbolt underneath it.

August doesn’t replace your lock. It wraps around the interior thumb turn of your existing deadbolt. So if your deadbolt is a cheap Kwikset with a known SmartKey bypass vulnerability, the August doesn’t fix that. It just adds app control to a lock that can still be defeated in seconds with a $10 tool.

The electronic side is reasonably secure. August uses 128-bit AES encryption for Bluetooth communication, and ASSA ABLOY (August’s parent company) has a legitimate security pedigree going back decades. Remote hacking isn’t the realistic threat vector here.

The realistic threat is the same one you had before: someone physically attacking the lock on the other side of the door. And August doesn’t change that equation at all. The tailpiece adapter—the part that connects August’s motor to your deadbolt’s thumb turn—is just a plastic-and-metal coupling. It’s not adding kick resistance. It’s not upgrading your strike plate. It’s not deepening your deadbolt throw.

Real Pros & Cons (No Fluff)

Setup & Daily Life

Installation

Genuinely easy. Remove the interior thumb turn from your existing deadbolt, attach the mounting plate, snap the August unit on, and pair it through the app. The app walks you through calibration so the motor knows exactly how far to turn. Total time: under 15 minutes with a screwdriver. No locksmith needed.

Day-to-Day

You’ll use auto-unlock 80% of the time. When that fails, you tap “Unlock” in the app, which takes about 2 seconds via Bluetooth and 3-4 seconds via Wi-Fi (remotely). Voice commands through Alexa or Google work but add another second of delay. The activity log is genuinely useful—you can see exactly when your door was locked, unlocked, and by whom.

Problems Over Time

The biggest long-term issue is battery anxiety. The lock runs on CR123 batteries (Wi-Fi model) or 2x AA batteries (4th Gen). The Wi-Fi model chews through batteries faster because it’s maintaining a constant network connection. When batteries drop below about 20%, the motor gets noticeably slower. The app warns you, but not always early enough. Keep spares in a drawer.

The second issue is the auto-unlock geo-fence. It occasionally triggers too early (unlocking when you’re still in the driveway) or too late (you’re already at the door). It’s good, not perfect. And if multiple family members have auto-unlock enabled, the lock sometimes gets confused about who’s arriving.

Who Should Actually Buy This

The August Wi-Fi Smart Lock is a convenience product that people mistake for a security product. Once you understand that, the decision gets much clearer.

If you want to ditch your house key, manage guest access from your phone, and know when your door is opened throughout the day—this does all of that extremely well. It’s the best retrofit smart lock on the market for a reason.

But if you’re buying this because you think it makes your home harder to break into, it doesn’t. Not by itself. The lock underneath is what stops a burglar. August is what stops you from forgetting to engage it.

That’s not nothing—a deadbolt that’s always locked is infinitely more secure than one you leave open because you’re lazy. But it’s important to be honest about what you’re buying.

Quick Comparison

Wondering how this stacks up? Check out our Deadbolt vs Smart Lock: Real Security Test for the full breakdown. And if you’re considering Yale’s version instead, read our Yale Assure Lock 2 review—same parent company, very different lock.