Availability on multiple devices

Feature requests
1

Hello.
I am in the habit of always having backups to everything. So besides having my regular mobile phone i always keep one more configured identically, just in case. I recently checked my backup phone and noticed that the Nuki app was not installed. All right, i installed it, was greeted with the standard app, asked to add a new smart lock, all the bunch. I was in a hurry, didn’t bother with it. Yesterday i checked again and to my surprise, the Nuki on my backup phone was working. I said great! However, today, when i opened Nuki on my MAIN phone i was told that a backup was restored on another device and that was it. Lucky i had a key…

This is completely wrong for two reasons:

  1. First, it’s nice Nuki keeps a backup somewhere, somehow (but i see nowhere stated that my very private data is on somebody’s server, which in my opinion violates some privacy rules). However as an end user i don’t have any control over that backup. I can’t use it, i can’t delete it, i can’t restore it. What is the point of it then?
  2. I want to be able to install and use the app on as many devices as i want! I should not be forced to use just one device.

Also, the fact that Nuki decided for me which is my primary device and arbitrarily disabled the other was not nice.
I don’t think it’s that difficult to implement some sort of authentication scheme that would allow me to use MY smartlock, that grants access to MY property on any number of devices i want.
Kind regards.

3

Hallo,

ich kann das hier nicht so stehen lassen. Ich habe auf zwei mobilen Geräten ( Smartphone / Tablet ) die App installiert. Dieses musste ich natürlich erstmalig manuell durchführen aber nun erfolgen die Updates auch automatisch. Beide laufen auf den Betaversionen absolut zuverlässig.

Gruß

4

Johannes,

  1. Nuki does not have any backups. The keys are stored in the backup that you made of your primary device.
  2. The only thing we are doing upon restoring a backup is to make sure that only the last device is able to use the keys included in the backup. I.e. you can not duplicate keys by restoring a backup. Therefore the keys on the “old” device are made unavailable as soon as the “new” device is used.

This covers >90% of all cases (wipe existing device & restore on same device; buy new device and restore backup on new device). But you’re right, your case is not covered. You can place a feature request for the way how you want to tread restores.
However, please keep in mind that the current implementation of Nuki keys are device specific keys, which are only stored inside the Smart Lock and on the specific device, not on any servers/cloud. You can not simply duplicate a key and use the same key on several devices. Cloud based keys would be another feature request, which would has some advantages (esp. when it comes to multi device support) but also disadvantages (e.g. keys stored on server/cloud; login necessary)

5

Hello Jurgen, thank you for your answer.

  1. “Nuki does not have any backups. The keys are stored in the backup that you made of your primary device”. I assume you mean the App Data backup that is setup on my phone to sync with my G Drive (standard setting on Android if you choose to backup). There are however, from my point of view, two problems with this:

a. Nuki should have a way to make a backup from within the app to a manually chosen destination. To secure this backup Nuki could encrypt the backup file and protect it with a password, and to make it even more secure, to send a confirmation email before activating the backup. Like, Phone nr. 2, open freshly installed Nuki, have option “Restore from backup”, choose the backup file, enter decrypt password, send confirmation email while displaying on the screen a message of some sort like “please check your email and click on confirmation link” or whatever, wait for the confirmation email to be validated, if validated activate settings, if not then do nothing, if validated send again email that “new device was setup bla bla bla”. This way i could securely have my account activated on as many devices as i want.
Right now i must put my faith in google that it will take care of my backup or use a third party app to make a manual backup (but they don’t always work with such sensitive data) and still be limited to one device.

b. if the only backup one has currently is the one their Android phone makes when App Data backup is enabled what do you do with people who don’t want to use this Android feature? Or who by sheer ignorance don’t have it on? Or who when having a new phone don’t restore the old data because they don’t know why they should do that, don’t care, don’t remember what G account they used on their previous phone, or reseted the phone because some unidentified app misbehaved and they want to start from scratch etc? I know plenty of people from all my examples. In that case when reinstalling the Nuki app one would be effectively locked out from accessing their own smart lock and the only solution would be a hard reset of the lock thus loosing all settings, users etc, plus all the trouble.

I think your current “solution” is ok and it’s good that it works for people, but a manual backup option is a MUST, not a NICE-TO-HAVE.

  1. I don’t see really a problem with cloud based keys. After all, one can already access the smart lock from a web based interface on web.nuki.io so you already provide such a service. If web.nuki.io is supposed to be safe enough to allow access to the smart lock and ALL ITS SETTINGS then i assume is safe enough to either authorize multiple clients or to keep a backup of the current settings.

If somebody is paranoid and doesn’t trust web.nuki.io then that person will chose not to use it, simple as that. The idea is to give the end user options and then that person will make the decision, either by going with the current way because it’s enough for him/her or by taking advantage of the extra possibilities. Having an encrypted, password protected, email validated backup file should exonerate Nuki from all further responsibility and the burden of taking care of that backup belongs entirely to the user.

Also, having the option of manual backup and restore could presumably help you with sales. If the current solution fails and i have to hard reset my smart lock well, if i only have one, you just swear a bit and do it. But what if you have 3-4-5-10 Nuki smart locks? What if they are located in different geographical areas? You would have to hard reset all of them! Even two smart locks would be a problem, for instance i have one at my place and i am thinking of putting one to another place i own in a town 400 km away. If by any chance something happens to my automatic backup from G drive over which i have zero control i would have to reset the smart lock in my town, 15 minutes away, cool, but then i would have to travel 800 km just to reset the other one and re-add it to my phone. That is why i am saying that by having the possibility of manual backup it could boost sales as well, I for sure would buy more Nuki devices :slight_smile:

Sorry for the long post.
Kind regards.