August Smart Lock Pro Review (2026)

Interior-Only Installation: The Renter Advantage

The August Smart Lock Pro's core design insight is simple and genuinely brilliant: most renters can't replace exterior door hardware because landlords won't permit it, leases prohibit it, or returning the apartment to its original condition at move-out is too complicated. August's solution is to not touch the exterior at all. The lock attaches to the interior thumb turn of your existing deadbolt — the same knob you twist to lock and unlock from inside. Your exterior door hardware looks exactly as it did before installation. Your existing keys still work on the exterior cylinder. Your landlord, your building manager, and your neighbors will never know you've added any smart functionality.

Installation typically takes under 15 minutes and requires only a screwdriver. The August Pro comes with multiple adapter plates to fit the majority of standard American deadbolts. You remove your existing interior thumb turn, attach the August mounting plate, and clip the lock body onto it. No drilling, no wiring, no irreversible modifications. When you move, the process reverses in the same 15 minutes. This makes the August Pro genuinely portable — you can take it with you from apartment to apartment in a way that's impossible with any lock that replaces exterior hardware.

DoorSense: Truly Knowing Your Door Is Locked

DoorSense is August's door-position sensor system, and it solves a problem that makes most smart locks fundamentally incomplete: a lock can report "locked" while the door is standing open. If you engage the deadbolt without fully closing the door first, the bolt either won't extend fully or will rest against the door frame without engaging the strike plate. A simple lock-status indicator — green for locked, red for unlocked — tells you nothing about whether the door is physically closed and the bolt is seated properly in the strike plate.

DoorSense adds a magnetic sensor to your door frame (installed with adhesive tape, no drilling) that detects the door's physical position and communicates it to the lock. The app then shows you a compound status: door open, door closed and unlocked, door closed and locked. The "door closed and locked" state is the only one that means your home is actually secured. This distinction matters most late at night when you're checking the app before bed, or remotely after leaving for work wondering if you remembered to close the door behind you.

Guest Access Without Key Copies

The August app's guest access system eliminates the need to cut physical key copies for houseguests, dog walkers, cleaners, or short-term visitors. You invite guests by email — they download the August app and receive a virtual key that grants access through Bluetooth or Wi-Fi when they're at the door. Access can be permanent (for a trusted person with ongoing access) or time-limited (available only on specific days or within a date range). Revocation is immediate and requires no physical key return.

The practical benefit for renters is significant. Giving a neighbor a key copy to water plants while you travel means cutting a new key (usually $5–15 at a hardware store) and then either trusting them not to copy it, asking for it back, or living with the knowledge that an uncollected copy exists somewhere. August's virtual keys cost nothing to issue and nothing to revoke. You can see in the app when a guest used the lock, which provides accountability for service providers like cleaners and maintenance workers. For short-term vacation rental use, August also integrates with major hosting platforms to automate access provisioning and revocation.

Battery Life and Emergency Access

The August Pro runs on four AA batteries and delivers approximately three months of typical use — defined by August as roughly 10 lock/unlock cycles per day. Heavy use (frequent deliveries, dog walkers, family members who rarely use their physical keys) will drain batteries faster. The app provides low-battery warnings with enough lead time to replace batteries before a failure, and the lock signals a low-battery condition audibly when operated manually. Replacing batteries takes about 30 seconds — the lock body pops off the mounting plate and the battery compartment is immediately accessible.

The critical question for any battery-powered smart lock is what happens when batteries die completely. With the August Pro, the answer is reassuring: your exterior deadbolt is unchanged. If the August lock is completely dead, you turn your physical key in the exterior cylinder exactly as you always did — the August mechanism rides along passively. There is no scenario where a dead battery locks you out of your own home. Some competing smart locks that replace the entire exterior cylinder can leave you locked out if batteries fail and you don't have a physical key backup — a design flaw the August architecture eliminates by construction.

Smart Home Integration Depth

The August Smart Lock Pro 4th gen supports a wider range of smart home ecosystems than almost any competing lock. Apple HomeKit integration means you can control the lock through the Home app, set automations (lock when the last person leaves home, notify if left unlocked), and use Siri voice commands. Amazon Alexa integration supports voice commands and can be incorporated into Alexa routines — "Alexa, good night" can lock the door alongside turning off lights. Google Home integration covers Assistant voice commands and Google Home automations. Z-Wave support allows integration with professional security systems and Z-Wave hubs like SmartThings and Hubitat for users who want local-processing home automation without cloud dependencies.

The included Wi-Fi bridge (the August Connect) plugs into any standard outlet near the door and bridges Bluetooth from the lock to your home Wi-Fi network, enabling remote access and control from anywhere in the world. This is included in the box at the $149.99 price — some competing locks charge separately for their Wi-Fi bridges, making the total cost comparison more favorable to August than the sticker price suggests.

August Pro vs. Schlage Encode: Which Fits You

The Schlage Encode is the most frequently cited alternative, and it represents a fundamentally different design philosophy. The Encode replaces your entire exterior lock cylinder and includes a built-in keypad — so you never need a physical key at all, and family members can enter a PIN code without any device. It's significantly more secure against physical tampering because the Schlage lock cylinders are graded higher than the generic cylinders on most apartment doors. However, it requires replacing exterior hardware — which immediately disqualifies it for renters — and the installation is more involved.

The decision maps cleanly to your situation: if you own your home and want a keypad for keyless entry and maximum cylinder security, the Schlage Encode is the better tool. If you rent, or if preserving your existing exterior hardware is a priority for any reason, the August Pro is the right choice. The two products don't compete directly — they serve different constraints, and the August Pro's interior-only design is the specific answer to a specific problem that the Schlage Encode cannot address.