One of the best smart locks on the market right now is the Nest X Yale, but with how advanced smart locks have gotten it can be difficult to figure out how they keep your house secure.
How does the Nest X Yale door lock work? The Nest X Yale uses Weave, an independent communication protocol, to connect with a Nest Connect or Nest Guard. This connects to WiFi allowing for communication between your lock, your phone, and any other device connected with Weave. You can then use your phone or a preset code to unlock the door.
As a Nest product, the Nest X Yale is easy to integrate into any previously set up Nest home. This allows for easy combinations with other Nest products such as cameras, smoke detectors, and doorbells.
Details on the Nest X Yale
Nest has been a well established smart home security company for a long time but the Nest X Yale is the companies first attempt at a smart lock. Ultimately this lock is designed for those that have already bought products from the Nest family.
The integration through the Weave makes adding new products as simple as scanning a QR code.
Implementing a Nest X Yale requires the removal of your door’s old lock with the Nest X Yale system. This will provide you with a keypad instead of a keyhole and allow for you to save up to 20 pass-codes that you or, whoever you have given the code to, can use to enter your house instead of needing to print keys.
The conveniences continue to grow as with google assistant integration you can use your phone either through the Nest app or through the Google assistant to both unlock and lock the door.
The Nest x Yale even has an autolocking function that you can set to lock your door after a certain period of time.
Additionally, you can set the passcodes up so that you can tell who is entering you house using that code. That way you’ll be able to keep tabs on who’s home if you need to know.
For more details on the Nest X Yale or other Nest products check it out on Amazon.
Setting up a Nest X Yale Lock
Since you have to replace your existing deadbolt with the Nest x Yale lock installation can get a little tricky. Luckily you can find detailed instructions and a helpful app called Bilt to help with the installing your new lock.
Compatibility between your door and the lock is important here. There are a couple of doors that won’t work with a Nest X Yale lock. First, a deadbolt is a requirement. That is the new lock that you are putting in so your door needed to have that lock there initially.
This means sliding doors are a no go with this type of lock. As well as glass doors just not quite fitting the bill here.
In regard to your door’s dimensions you’ll need an average door thickness so a 1 and 3/8 inch thick, 1 and 3/4 inch thick, or a 2 to 2 and 1/4 inch thick door shouldn’t run into any conflicts with the Nest x Yale lock but anything thicker or thinner than those dimensions will cause some issues.
When setting up your nest connect with your Nest X Yale you’ll want to try to place the nest connect between your router and the lock. Distance can be an issue though so if your Nest connect is too far away from the Nest X Yale Lock you may have connection issues.
This issue can be a problem if you get multiple Nest X Yale locks as well. It may be possible to get the Nest X Yale locks to work off of a single Nest connect but you may also need to buy two Nest connects for the Nest X Yale locks to work off of.
For detailed installation instruction check out Nest’s guide to installation.
How Does Nest’s Weave Work?
Nest’s Weave was Nest’s answer to the long-debated concept of devices that were overly reliant on the internet to work. When we are talking about large devices it really isn’t an issue if they need to be connected to the internet but small devices like smart locks shouldn’t need the internet to function properly.
So Nest having multiple devices on the smaller energy scale needed to create a low power connection system. The result was Weave. This however caused some problems as Nest kept the weave to their Nest devices exclusively.
This meant that other third-party smart home devices wouldn’t be able to connect to the Weave or the Nest devices you had hooked up to the Weave.
This recently has changed and Nest has allowed for non-Nest products to connect to the Nest Weave through a Wifi connection using Nest’s cloud API.
This announcement and release have just opened the gate of possibilities of the Smart home community and how it can be used to advance the smart home industry in the future.
Other Perks of the Nest X Yale
Privacy Mode
You can set time where no one can walk through your door during a certain period. You can enter this privacy mode on your Nest X Yale. Ensuring that there are no intrusions as you focus on your privacy.
So if you are a person that really needs their privacy than the Nest X Yale is a great option for you.
Built-in Security
Locks are supposed to keep people out. If someone tries to force their way in then what? With the right tools no lock is going to hold up so what about security?
The Nest X Yale has built-in security measures that will alert you if someone is tampering with your lock. This will set off both an alarm within the home as well as send a notification to your home.
If the intruders weren’t already deterred by the alarm then you can take quick action to prevent any further action as well.
This advantage is even better as you get other Nest features such as the doorbell camera. That way you can better identify what is happening at your house so that you have the correct information to take quick action.
Related Questions:
Are Nest Weave and Google Weave the same thing? Nest is a company owned by Google however Google Weave and Nest Weave are very different. However, Nest is working with their parent company to find a means to get the two weaves to work together.
What if the Nest X Yale lock’s battery dies? You will be notified when the batteries in your door are low. The warning appear on your phone an when you type on the keypad. If locked out do to low batteries you can hold a 9V alkaline battery to the terminals at the locks bottom to provide temporary charge to the lock.
What voice assistants work with the Nest X Yale? For the time being the only voice assistant that works with the Nest X Yale is the Google assistant. so both Alexa and Siri will not be able to connect with the Nest X Yale. This may change though based on the new possibilities the Nest Weave being opened to new products.