I've seen quite a few posts with hosts having issues with August Smart Locks. After many hours of frustration I think I found a workaround that will hopefully help someone.
I just started my airbnb and both of my first two guests could not get the lock to work. In order to not have them wasting time and getting upset, on both occasions I had to give them a actual key to my home. I was not happy with that.
When my sister came to visit I decided to use her to test things out and see if I could get it to work and I did. The usual toggle the bluetooth, clear the cache, force close and rebooth the phone DO NOT work. I want my guests to be able to use the bluetooth option because I have community wifi and I don't want them to have to find the MAC address of their phone to use my wifi. So after trying everything I tried something I didn't want to try....a Factory Reset.
First I deleted her key and sent her a new invite. Then I did the Factory Reset which was actually quick and easy. It did a quick recalibration and let me know it was ready. I skipped the wi-fi setup so it would be forced to use bluetooth only. I then had her accept the invite. At first her phone read unable to authenticate or authentication failure (I'm assuming because thats what it said before I did the reset). She then force closed the app, reopened it and like magic it worked fine for the rest of the time she was at my place. Sidenote: She needed to turn off wifi on her phone each time she got ready to open the lock. When she left I went back into the app and turned the wifi back on.
For full transparency I have the 4th generation lock so I'm not sure if this trick will work on earlier generations. Also while she was here I left the wifi off which was a little inconvenient for me because the auto-lock, unlock and google nest integrations won't work without wifi enabled. But she was able to come and go without issues. Perhaps the factory reset fixed the issue and I won't need to do it for my next guest but I won't know until they check in. So for now the plan for my next guest is to do this again. Factory reset and skip the wifi setup. I hope this helps someone.
