U200 Lite locked me outside my own place in the winter due to - Not so funny

Aqara Products
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Hi,

Take this post as a complaint letter about the U200 Lite product. Maybe some others have similar stories/experiences to share.

This has happened two times now, but the last time I wasn’t alone—I was with my partner. Think about my partner as my user, and me as the system provider. I need 100 percent satisfaction in order to convince her that this is the best solution I could find to upgrade our locking mechanism.

This is what happened. Think about the scenario:
You come home, it is −10 °C outside (19 °C indoors). You expect to open the door as always (using your keys), and when trying to open it, you can’t. The lock mechanism inside the door, an Aqara U200 Lite, is blocked and does not let the key open the door. It seems jammed or stalled. It will not give up, and you don’t want to force the key in any direction because it may break. My partner looks at me, and I am calm. I work with electronics, and I say, “Don’t worry, I’ll open the door with the app.” I take my phone, open Home Assistant, and change its status (if I remember correctly, it appears to be locked), and I try to open/close the lock. It fails and starts its failure alarm.

Ok, it is “just” −10 °C outside. We are carrying shopping bags, and the kids are coming to the door too. Ok, I try once more. It fails again and sounds the alarm.
I am the admin in our home system, so the only option is to recalibrate the lock and hope that this solves or forces the motor state. Yes, that worked out. After running the first calibration step, the motor is not jammed anymore. Now I can use the keys once more. Everyone comes in. Everyone carries on with their lives as usual.

Not me. I am worried this may happen again and live in panic that my partner might call me at any time because she cannot open the door anymore and I am not around to help her. I need an explanation. Why could the key not open the door? Why was the motor jammed/stalled?

Can I get the calibration option in Home Assistant at least (over the Matter protocol) in order to remotely rescue her from freezing outside? She will definitely never accept that she is required to use an app to unlock the door after it gets stuck.

I am about to file a product claim due to safety reasons. This resulted well in the end, but I don’t think anyone should go through such an experience, especially when it is advertised as compatible with a mechanical system.

Warm regards,
An almost convince Aqara user.

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Hi there,
I’m very sorry for the unpleasant experience you had with the U200 Lite. I can truly understand how upsetting and stressful this must have felt, especially while it was happening. Our support team will reach out to you shortly via email to help resolve the issue. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and would really appreciate the chance to make things right and regain your trust.

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Hi, thank you for sharing this in such detail.
We’re already passing this case to our engineers and will work with them to analyze the situation as quickly as possible.

We’ll get back to you with an update soon.
Thank you for your patience and for bringing this to our attention.

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Thanks for the replies. I will be happy to assist you under this period of investigation. As I mentioned, the product works in the normal events as normally, but one of the points of buying specifically this product is the apparent advantage to still use the keys whenever is required.

In the past we owned a house with a complete electronic lock, which happened a couple of times that the battery was exhausted and we being locked out becasue was our only entrance to the house and we did not have an extra 9V battery to unlock the door when this happen. But we know what to do because it was in the instructions. Not optimal to need to carry with a 9V just in case (who does that btw?), but we knew what to expect.

This time I just wanted a retrofit to my door, but in this case there was no possibility to open the door unless using the app and re-calibrate (force or restore the lock states to normal), which I still don’t know if it will be remedy next time it happens. This also opens the question to, what will happen if the motor is in such state and there is no battery to run calibration?

There are of course extreme scenarios, but serious companies always runs on extreme scenarios for testing, so I hope this may be documented in upcoming releases so we can know the remedies.

As I said, I am happy for now to run test as your engineers would like.

B.R.
J

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