Product name
Nuki Smart Lock 2.0
Summary
Following up on the discussion at HomeKit unlock command opens door
With Nuki’s current HomeKit implementation, using Apple’s Home app on both iOS and macOS, or alternative apps which make use of HomeKit (such as Eve System’s Eve app), switching the lock to “unlocked” immediately triggers the Nuki Smart Lock 2.0 to open (!) the door, instead of unlocking (!) it.
This current implementation is very misleading from a UI perspective, and potentially very dangerous for the user, as it can quickly lead to an unwanted open door. Especially when remotely triggered, the door can not be closed anymore, leaving it wide open for everybody!
Therefor, Nuki’s HomeKit implementation should be changed to be more secure for the user. The user should be able to select the preferred Nuki/HomeKit mapping in order to really just unlock the door, instead of opening it right away. This would much better mirror the current behavior of the Nuki App, which differentiates between locked, unlocked, opened (or even more).
Features
First of all, it is obvious that Apple needs to update their currently available HomeKit Lock constants (for details please see “Reason” below) - until then, please make the preferred HomeKit/Nuki mapping user selectable within the Nuki iOS app settings.
As a user, using the HomeKit funtionality (for instance via Apple’s Home App on iOS or macOS), I want it to trigger the “Unlock” command to the Nuki Smart Lock 2.0, instead of triggering the “Open Door” command. As part of daily routines, I only want to unlock my door instead of opening it, thus preventing an unwanted open door.
The values which are currently possible to be used with HomeKit do not completely mirror the states which Nuki knows (Unlock, Lock, Open Door - I do not include Lock’n’Go here). HomeKit’s “unsecured” reflects Nuki’s “Open Door”, rather than Nuki’s “Unlock”!
Reason
The current HomeKit implementation is unusable for safety reasons, even worse, it is dangerous as it is likely to lead to an unintentionally opened door and therefor needs to be changed!
From a UX perspective, the HomeKit UI for the lock (showing a closed lock for “locked”, and an opened lock for “unlocked”) is very misleading for the user. The “unlocked” icon does not correctly reflect an “unlocked” lock/door, but instead an “open” one - for a home door, this can be huge difference!
HomeKit so far only knows certain few lock mechanism states (see https://developer.apple.com/documentation/homekit/hmcharacteristicvaluelockmechanismstate for details), this is obviously a limitation which Apple needs to overcome. From my perspective, the currently possible values for the state of a lock mechanism are not enough and need to be updated with additional possible values. Please also do contact Apple to request additional lock mechanism states, in order to better cater for user requirements.
I have so far disabled the HomeKit functionality now as I do not want anyone (myself included) to unintentionally open the door lock operated by NUKI, and am very unhappy with that, as the HomeKit integration was the reason to spend the additional money and update to the Smart Lock 2.0.
Examples
I would like to use this feature as a setting in the Nuki App on iOS:
Settings / Administration / Activate HomeKit --> when this switch is enabled, I want to be able to specify whether I want to allow HomeKit to trigger the Nuki Smart Lock 2.0 to either:
-
unlock, but do not unlatch the lock, respectively the door (map Nuki’s Lock Action 0x01 unlock to Apple’s HomeKit Lock Mechanism State HMCharactericticValueLockMechanismStateSecured)
or - open and unlatch the lock, respectively the door (map Nuki’s Lock Action 0x03 unlatch to Apple’s HomeKit Lock Mechanism State HMCharactericticValueLockMechanismStateSecured)