Hallo Stephan!
Thank you for your guidance. My wife loves Austria, in particular the beautiful architecture, the viennese schnitzel in The Hotel Bristol, the beer and sausages on the street corners, and the theatres and opera house!
Nuki going offline
Although I have not heard yet from Nuki Support, I can report that the issue was a connectivity issue and it has been solved.
How it was solved?
I literally stood in front of the app for about 1 hour until the connection status went from “offline” to online for a few seconds, enough time for me to send the instruction to unlock the door’s deadbolt. My door has a smart nightlatch also (in addition to a main deadbolt operated by Nuki) operated by a third party smart solution, which safely closes / opens the door after the deadbolt is unlocked by Nuki. This third party solution works with wifi, bluetooth and a 4G card so it is always “online”. After unlocking the Nuki, I was able to open the nightlatch for a friend of mine who kindly entered the flat and reposition the Nuki bridge to a location closer to the Nuki lock. This allowed for the signal strength to go from yellow to green, and the lock has stayed online since yesterday.
What I have learned from this is that if the last leg of the connection between the Nuki unit and the Nuki bridge goes yellow on the app, even occasionally, there is no guarantee that the lock will remain online for an acceptable period of time. So for anyone reading this, if you want a reliable operation 24/7, make sure to test thoroughly and that in all your tests a green indication was obtained folks before you leave the building!
Bluetooth Range Issue
As it transpired, with the bridge unplugged, there is no issue operating the Nuki directly from a smartphone with bluetooth 4 or 5 even from double the distance the Nuki Bridge was originally placed in my flat. This may suggests the Bluetooth connection between the Nuki Bridge and the Nuki lock v2 is of different specification / quality than that between the Nuki lock and a Smartphone with Bluetooth 5.0 or 4.0. May I ask if this is the case and if so, are there any plans to improve the signal between the Nuki lock and its bridge to make it less “distance-dependable”.
The reason I am asking this is because for a smart lock to be truly 100% operational remotely, it has to be able to open the door even during a blackout or when the electricity is off in the flat, i.e. during a refurbishment. There is tendency to dedicate a special room or cupboard in people’s homes for the smart department. In my case this is the 2nd floor, where I have a location in my flat with a robust UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) to which the home’s router, Nuki bridge, ethernet switch, and all gadgets are connected so they can continue operating everything for several hours in case of power cut. It would not be practical and economically feasible to have several UPSs in different places just because the operational range of a gadget is not optimal to ensure a proper operation. At the moment, although I have found the solution for Nuki Bridge to operate reliably and keep the Nuki lock “online”, I have exposed my smart locking system to not being operational remotely during a power cut unless I invest in a new UPS with a standard 240v socket (not DC outputs) solely for the Nuki Bridge, and these are expensive and not aesthetically-pleasant.
I hope this feedback is appreciated.
Best wishes
Jav