we have a cylinder with panic function in such a way that when the door is closed and someone pushes the door handle from inside the building, the locking bolt springs back and opens the door (we call it anti panic function). The problem for nuki is, while the locking bolt moves the cylinder isn´t rotating and so the motor looses his calibration.
The Nuki Installation Checks result that our door/cylinder works with Nuki, but of course this function was not part of the check questions.
What can we do? Is there another cylinder which has an alternative panic function?
Hope to get soon help, approx. 100 Users are already using our first Nuki.
Thank you!!
P.S.: Why doesn´t Nuki start calibration by itself after it recoginizes that calibration is lost (motor blocked…)?
Any situation where the lock status changes without the key turning inside the Smart Lock will lead to problems. So nothing similar to what you described would work.
Calibration without manual observation could lead to an unwanted open door which we want to avoid in any case.
i unterstand. Now the question is, are there other cylinders available, which also habe this panic function, but let the cylinder rotate? In my opinion every public building must have such a function and so nuki wouldnt be suitable for any public building?
Idea 1: Everytime when the motor blocks (e.g. because of changed lock status without cylinder rotating) Nuki starts directly a calibration. Then it is ensured that an authorized person is near the door or wants to open the door, otherwise the motor wouldn´t have blocked (without locking permission).
Idea 2: Let the user decide, if he wants periodical calibration
Idea 3: In combination with the door sensor you perform the following algotithm: WHEN the lock status is “closed” AND the door status is “closed” AND the door statis changes from “closed” to “open” WITHOUT changing the lock status" THEN it must be the panic function and so Nuki starts automatically a calbration or sends the administrator a push error message “panic function activated, please calibrate nuki”.
We had this already implemented, but never released it because of the feature beeing quite confusing, which could also lead to people believing the Smart Lock is broken. The way it worked was the following:
The Smart Lock never does a recalibration on it’s own. It’s very scary when it suddenly starts to move without user interaction. Therefore everything that tries to identify the position has to happen as part of a lock command.
When the Smart Lock receives the command “lock” it locks until max resistance.
When the Smart Lock receives the command “Open door” (= unlatch) it unlocks until max resistance.
If the Smart Lock receives the command “unlock” it first locks until max resistance and afterwards moves to the unlocked position.
This ensures that it never unintentionally pulls the latch. But it does on every command drive to max resistance at least once, which produces a higher than usual wear on the mechanics/motor and battery drain and you can still end up with lock states beeing reported wrong (e.g. after using the panic function it’s unlocked, but the smart lock believes it is still locked). Therefore this mode never made it into a production firmware.
whats your opinion to idea 3? The thing is, every public building must have this panic function, as i know. And I see Nuki also very suitable for public buildings, associations and voluntary organizations. But the described case, that Nuki always looses its calibration when the panic funtion is activated seems to be a showstopper for this widespread use for Nuki and this would be sad for the potential customers and i think also for Nuki?
If you think that some mechanisms or algorithms are too confusing for the private user, why not hide these settings in an “expert” menu for those, who want explicit them.
I understand that you don´t want to start a cal automatically for the general user, but why not allow this for the experts. Or at least as described in idea 3 send the administator a push message that the door must be calibrated.
Your option 3 is basically just a specific alert generated by Nuki Web (“Alert me when a locked door is opened”). You can file a feature request for this.
We don’t publicy comment on new features, therefore i can’t give you an/my opinion on it.
I have another idea: Is it possible to install a feature to start the calibration modus, when pressing two times or three times the button (inside the ring)? Then we can tell our guests: “When the lock is blocked and not working, push three times the button and then it will work.”
things are going well for now. I hope this is implemented permanently from now on? It runs via the debug mode. Is it good if it remains permanently activated? Or are you planning to implement it “properly” in the future anyway? In any case, this way now seems to work quite well.
Many thanks and best regards
Yes, it is part of the regular firmware releases and stays there.
Yes, that does not have an impact on battery life or anything else. It needs to stay there until we find a proper way how to activate it (i.e. a setting/switch somewhere in the App).