Nice idea, doesn’t work well
4 times out of 10 a door won’t work at all, slow latency to connect, relies on phone’s service connection (terrible in elevators, stairwells, enclosed corridors). Late night have been locked out due to phone dying, needed to remember two 6-digit codes to get in building and then in unit. Alternative is a key card that makes going home like a hotel, fumbling through wallets while carrying dog, groceries, etc. Please make **key fobs** and speed up latency. Most people who have buildings with Latch have cars, and upon arriving are fresh out of the car with keys in hand. I realize many people do everything with their phones now but because of Latch I have to carry my phone 24/7 and I used to appreciate going out for walks etc without my phone, as many people like to do to disconnect for a while.
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Response from developer
Hi there, Thank you for contacting Latch Support. We genuinely appreciate your patience and understanding as we work on these issues. Your feedback is invaluable to us, and we thank you for bringing it to our attention. If you have any further feedback or need assistance in the future, please do not hesitate to reach out. We’re happy to help. Best,
Recent update
New update has resulted the app being too slow to connect lock
Version 2.99.2 feature gap
Time to time the app doesn't recognize the reader on the door and that's why it's convenient to use the widget to open the most used doors even before you get there. The widget is also extremely handy when opening the garage gate while driving to it. The earlier versions of the widget jumped to the app, which allowed remote opening of the gate. The version 2.99.2 removed this feature. Now one needs to find the app, open it, find the gate, click the open button, and finally approve the remote opening. All this while driving. Would be better to automatically remote open the gate from the widget if the normal opening fails or ask in the widget to open the gate remotely.
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Awful
Bad app takes forever
Just not there yet
Cool concept but the technology really just isn’t there yet for this to be a convenient, reliable and seamless way of unlocking spaces. Extremely inconsistent, crazy latency, (every other day I’ll be standing in front of doors for 10 minutes quitting and restarting the app just for it to tell me I haven’t used that door before, which is untrue). In elevators, by the time I’m able to scan to unlock, the elevator has already gone past my floor, not to mention the frustration of needing to open the app and use it with hands full. It should be a tap and instant unlock without even having to open the app if the user can choose to grant access (so that I can leave my phone in my pocket and not have to fumble to find my phone and open the app and then wait again for unlock). Maybe I should be blaming my apartment for even installing these in elevators and many other spaces. I’ve noticed it does work better for Apple Watch users. I’m so frustrated that when I’ve had friends over I simply go and pick them up/let them out just so I don’t have to deal with granting permission using this app.
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Slow, buggy, fix to a non-existent problem.
My apartment complex switched to latch late last year and it’s not gotten better. It’s slow, glitchy, and is overall a worse experience than just a simple key or key fob. Will not be renewing my lease and will be sure to never rent again at a complex that uses Latch (yes, it’s that bad).
They say “make sure your app is up to date” it is always running latest version.. still slow and buggy.
They say “make sure your operating system is up to days” it is always running latest iOS version.. still slow and buggy.
They then say “oh it’s because you have the latest iOS.. the next latch update will improve it” .. and it never does. Always slow. Always buggy.
At risk of sounding old, what was wrong with regular old keys? My regular key worked during power outages. I could click my old key fob attached to my keychain to easily get in our garage gate.. but now I need to fumble around on a clunky app that is slow and only works 1/3 of the time to open a gate. I understand there is a play in harvesting all our user data and personal information and good job to whoever at Latch convinced these property managers that Latch is somehow an improvement.. because it’s not. It’s just another instance of technology solving non-existent problems and making things less efficient than before.
They say “make sure your app is up to date” it is always running latest version.. still slow and buggy.
They say “make sure your operating system is up to days” it is always running latest iOS version.. still slow and buggy.
They then say “oh it’s because you have the latest iOS.. the next latch update will improve it” .. and it never does. Always slow. Always buggy.
At risk of sounding old, what was wrong with regular old keys? My regular key worked during power outages. I could click my old key fob attached to my keychain to easily get in our garage gate.. but now I need to fumble around on a clunky app that is slow and only works 1/3 of the time to open a gate. I understand there is a play in harvesting all our user data and personal information and good job to whoever at Latch convinced these property managers that Latch is somehow an improvement.. because it’s not. It’s just another instance of technology solving non-existent problems and making things less efficient than before.
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Horrible, horrible app
This app is so glitchy and horrible, the only thing I hate more is my building’s management company that decided to stick with it despite everyone hating it. We’ve lived in this apartment building for 2 years, and can think of at least a dozen times when we have either been locked out of the building or our apartment because the app has not worked, and then at least one instance the building’s power went out and literally nobody could get in the building, the elevator, or the apartments, because none of it works without power.
You know what doesn’t fail from an electrical outage? Keys.
And even when the app is supposedly working, it is incredibly slow to respond, and on at least two occasions, my wife has been afraid for her safety when trying to get into our building late at night and somebody has followed her—and the app didn’t work such that she was stuck on the sidewalk trying to get into our building with a person following her.
We have brought up all of these concerns to the building multiple times (as have *many* people we’ve met in our building), and they continue to use this incredibly substandard app. I really don’t hope this ever happens, but if someone is assaulted on the street because this app isn’t working and they couldn’t get into their home, I hope that they can cite this as one of many examples of gross negligence of any building choosing to use this horrible app to save a few bucks.
You know what doesn’t fail from an electrical outage? Keys.
And even when the app is supposedly working, it is incredibly slow to respond, and on at least two occasions, my wife has been afraid for her safety when trying to get into our building late at night and somebody has followed her—and the app didn’t work such that she was stuck on the sidewalk trying to get into our building with a person following her.
We have brought up all of these concerns to the building multiple times (as have *many* people we’ve met in our building), and they continue to use this incredibly substandard app. I really don’t hope this ever happens, but if someone is assaulted on the street because this app isn’t working and they couldn’t get into their home, I hope that they can cite this as one of many examples of gross negligence of any building choosing to use this horrible app to save a few bucks.
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Good Concept, Still Buggy
Going to be honest, it’s a great concept. The ability to remotely unlock doors, give temporary keys etc is awesome and deserves 2 stars. The app however is where that ends. While the app has been updated a lot recently, there are still a tremendous amount of bugs that make using Latch frustrating. The delay to unlock doors is 3-6 seconds per door when it functions right, and often times that is being generous. The widget on iOS often crashes when using a shortcut, or will get stuck in an endless “unlocking” cycle where the bar gets stuck and you have to reboot the app. Every other day the widget just disappears and tells you to setup latch - that’s always lovely when you have a hand full of groceries trying to get in a door. Hopefully improvements keep coming, but for now I wouldn’t be able to recommend.
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Batteries drain and die rapidly
I love parts of our building’s new Latch system (like being able to use Siri to open locks when my hands are full or tapping my suite’s entry button while on the elevator so the door is unlocked when I get there), but the fact that the Latch people say that Duracell batteries are basically the only ones that work well adds so much cost and it’s not like the batteries last a few years. Our building has had these locks installed about 2 years and I’ve had to replace the batteries twice. Keep in mind, I live alone and haven’t been going out much over the last couple years due to recovery from multiple surgeries. That means that if more people live in your home or if you engage or unlock your door more than me (I would guess I do so 6-8x per week - meaning I leave my unit 3 to 4x per week on average), you’ll be replacing your batteries multiple times a year and buying Duracell gets pricy!
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Response from developer
Dear Melba, thank you for taking the time to review us. We are glad that you are enjoying the app and will consider the suggestion about the batteries. Thanks for the feedback and review!
Has Potential
First off, the fundamental functionality of a lock is to lock AND unlock. This app only allows unlocking. Furthermore, given the smart lock and a smart phone being involved, you can’t check the status of your door lock. It just always says “unlock” regardless of the status. Also, when I have the app open and get within Bluetooth range of my lock but haven’t selected “unlock” yet, the app immediately crashes and I have to open it again to get in my door. There are also many times when the app is open I put the phone up to the lock and it doesn’t do anything yet there isn’t an error or anything and this happens on the Apple Watch as well. I also get the “open the latch app on your phone to use” oftentimes when I go for a ran and I don’t have my phone. That’s sorta the purpose of using the Apple Watch I would think. Highly annoying when you can’t get in because the watch app isn’t working correct. Overall, the QA department needs some help I think as it’s obvious that the app isn’t tested very well. These issues have persisted for months with no fixes.
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