SmartRent Reviews

On top of our electric bill skyrocketing, 2 weeks after this was installed we took a weekend trip. Upon return, our front door devise was dead. Customer service told us to hold a 9 volt battery to it. First off, who Carrie’s a 9 volt battery around? WHO?!? Finally got one and I held it to the door for 45 min until it burned my hand. No other solutions except to call our apartment maintenance. Apartment maintenance didn’t know what to do and told us to call this dumb company. Needless to say, we were fully locked out for the whole night. I work from home and couldn’t even get inside my apartment. The next morning maintenance spent an hour drilling this crap off our door. We refused another one and went back to the trusted lock and key method! Beware, your electric bill is going to skyrocket with this crap! Mine has increased drastically! All electric companies offer money back rewards for using smart technology. SMART RENT IS NOT ONE OF THEM! Landlords need to research how many lawsuits this company has before choosing this company! To all the people that this crap is forced on, I am so terribly sorry!

Before I start, I’m dumbfounded to see this piece of garbage now has 4.5 stars. If ever there was a case of fake reviews pumping up a rating, this is it. There is ZERO possibility that 16,000+ legitimate reviews averaged 4.5. Not possible.

This is an all new review, after their self-proclaimed spectacular redesign. They diddled with the visual presentation and that’s it.

The real issue is that their equipment is positively junk. This ridiculous app just sends and receives signals to their junk. It’s not even terribly good at that. My second thermostat, in less than a year, doesn’t transmit its current state to he app. It always starts at 76 degrees, so you have to move it to send an update command, which doesn’t always work.

There’s often a long delay for the door to lock or unlock. Coupled with the horrible keypad on the lock itself, getting in and out with your hands full is always fun. Better unlock it with SmartRent while you’re still in the car.

I could literally go on and on about how bad SmartRent and the entire system is. The idea of anyone giving it a four or five star rating is just beyond absurd.

This product left me locked out of my apartment! The keypad wouldn’t respond and the battery still showed it was powered! Luckily it malfunctioned during office hours and I wasn’t being pursued by someone dangerous and needed to enter my apartment quickly! Maintenance had to drill out my patio lock to enter my door! This is a huge safety issue! Now I always get a jammed lock error message when I leave even though my door is pulled closed and I can hear the lock locking. Like many others I find that SmartRent doesn’t consistently work to operate the hvac and I’ve also had a loud false alarm on the water detection device that the customer service technician tasked me with disassembling and contacting my building maintenance. I’ve had to do a lot of customer service calling and troubleshooting and I am being charged monthly for this faulty system that I did not request! The key fob our building had previously worked well and the nest looked better and functioned better than this general issued thermostat the company provides.

service began on friday when weather started to become colder. The thermostat was not working and i could not get it to work. weather got worse over the weekend and we were without heat. Monday morning our maintenance department came and could not get it to work. Got the on site worker from your company who could dodo not get it to work. Got the maintenance man back and then the Ac/Heat co tech who also could not get system to work. They changed thermostats about 4 times to old and new and work in circuit box to no avail. Temp tonight due to go to. 40 and we still have no heat. We are aged handicapped and this is not what we expect. We hope that tomorrow someone will be able to get the problem fixed as weather is to continue to be cold.

I wish my apartment complex would have never hired or done a contract with this company. They are the absolute worst, SmartRent always goes offline and their little water detectors will go off for no reason. If I could give them a zero star I totally would. I have so many problems with my lights now, not turning on or off and staying stuck and sometimes not working at all. Even when I use the switch they still don't work, I have to reset the breaker box myself because every week I am not exaggerating. The poor maintanance guys here at the apartment complex keep coming for the lights that i feel bad from them. Do yourself a favor and stay away from this company. oh and there customer service absolute trash, if i call they will automatically send you to voicemail because the apperantly have too many callers calling.

Many of the reviews settle at it works however they lack why it doesn’t really work. For instance, when changing the thermostats temp or mode it doesn’t take at the first change or maybe second one. Sometimes you will need to apply it multiple times and when you doubt that your system is working on heat or air as you want it to then check the physical thermostat. Typically it will have the same settings and look unchanged. You have a higher degree of confidence in just setting the actually thermostat. The smart lock also won’t recognize when it’s been locked manually. The lock will be fully engaged and SmartRent will display as open. Only when you send the lock single through SmartRent does it work. Overall it doesn’t work like many other better options

As other reviewers have said, this “upgrade” is going to add 5-10 minutes to your daily commute. Why? The lock jams. Also after jams, SmartRent randomly does not sync up to when your door is actually unlocked. Also when your door is jammed, you just end up waiting for SmartRent to re-sync. Had an exciting experience where I left my house thinking my door was locked (according to SmartRent it was) and then seeing in SmartRent a half hour later my door was unlocked. Ended up having to call maintenance and we played with it for a half hour. Conclusion: lock works beautifully when not in an actual door. When in the actual door, SmartRent (and lock) regularly does not reflect the reality of the door lock. This is the most useless upgrade ever and it’s literally supposed to do 1 thing-unlock my door. 1 thing….

Hands down one of the worst apps I’ve been forced to download. Our community recently adopted this service and installed smart locks on all units. SmartRent is slow to open, slow to load, and frequently signs you out—you’ll find yourself staring at a spinning circle more often than not. Even when it is working properly, SmartRent requires 3 taps to unlock your door, a lengthly user experience for such an essential service. Whether or not it unlocks your door is a 50/50 chance, though it will tell you it unlocked it either way. As you approach your home and pickup your own WiFi network, the whole app glitches as it transitions from cell service to Wifi, claiming you’re offline and causing further delays and false unlocks. No Apple Home/Phone/Watch support, which would at least take care of some of the UX issues.

Between the installers messing up my HVAC system and the thermostat never working in the hub always having to be reset!
The installers talking to me like I didn’t understand electronics I work as an installer of alarm systems home automation, CCTV systeml satellite systems and large sound systems and background music and businesses and churches for over 16 years if you’re installing a wireless system and you and it is based off a cell phone signal that is nonexistent in the location the equipment is not going to work properly. I’ve had nothing but problems with all aspects of your service I understand how this equipment works and in my opinion that not enough research was done on how weak the cell phone service is in the area! In the garage, and in the hallways, there is no cell my Wi-Fi because of the construction of the building does not work outside my apartment! Your equipment, replaced locks and thermostats and light switches that worked without any problems and now all the devices that were installed seem to be constantly having problems

SmartRent is so unreliable and poorly coded that within ten seconds of installing I noticed a glaring bug...pressing "unlock" and "lock" in sequence through SmartRent will cause your physical lock to be unlocked, but not re-locked. In SmartRent the status shows up as locked, but in person my door is clearly unlocked. This is such a ridiculously dangerous security vulnerability for a system that I must now use because my apartment complex forced me to upgrade! You can tell the people who coded SmartRent did not do so with security or ease of use in mind. Copying a phone number from my contacts into the recurring guest template was also laughably difficult to do. I'm fairly concerned that this system which now governs my entire house was clearly built on shoddy technical foundations.

Another ingenious company doing a major design overhaul that breaks features in SmartRent because their developer team doesn’t know how to QA. Since the new update, half the time you select a thermostat temperature it simply doesn’t update. Previously it worked 100% of the time, without fail. Now you can change the thermostat and 10 minutes later get to wonder “Why am I still freezing? Oh, the updated this app app only updates the temperature with the thermostat about half of the time.” Dark mode is nice, but other than that no one cares about your “modern design” if you can’t also have basic core functionality. Stop updating your app, you obviously can’t handle it. Stick with what is working.

1. Advertised Shortcuts support is a lie and does not work. Support has admitted this.
2. No HomeKit integration.
Without either of the above, there is no Siri control, no automation. I can manually operate things faster than the time it takes to open SmartRent , wait for it to connect, select a device, and perform an action, plus the delay between SmartRent and the actual home accessory.
3. Thermostat scheduling feature does not work, climate control consistently does not adhere to settings.
Beyond SmartRent , the home accessories they installed are not good. Locks are not smart and do not auto-unlock when you/your phone are nearby. Locks also have no sensor to detect if they’re actually closed or not, leading to deadbolt operation while the door is still open. It’s all Z-Wave, no mention of the critical S2 security protocol.

As a cybersecurity consultant, you can imagine my horror when our apartment decided to implement “smart” thermostats in our homes. Regardless, I looked forward to being able to change the temperature without getting up from my desk + the door controls.

Unfortunately, about a day later the application seemed to have stopped working entirely. As if it was just a pretty interface but didn’t actually do anything on the backend. Fast forward about 9-months later, the thermostat doesn’t even respond at all and the door takes a few additional seconds as if it’s buffering.

I understand making “smart” apps is difficult for some, but with as limited functionality as you have with this, it should work flawlessly and it definitely does not.

SmartRent is always throwing an error saying that the included cell connection isn’t stable and I need to connect to WiFi, but if you’ve ever read about the dangers of allowing smart devices access to your WiFi then you’ll understand why I don’t feel safe doing so. The “smart” lock jams more than it works and on several occasions SmartRent said the door was unlocked when it wasn’t, so I now treat it like an old-fashioned lock that requires a key. Adjusting the thermostat temperature from SmartRent sometimes works on one thermostat but never on the other.

To top it off, they try to sell you on adding your Ring account information in SmartRent so you can use their crappy app to manage everything in one place. Who does that benefit? SmartRent owners and developers? The property owner / manager?

SmartRent keeps showing the thermostat is set to a previous state at random and does not fetch the proper state all the time leading to confusion and potential high electric bill as SmartRent can trigger an old status to become current once you interact with it. Say the thermostat is set to OFF and you open SmartRent , it can show your previous state (Heat 75) so that can potential make the user interact with the thermostat tile leading SmartRent to send a new signal to re-trigger an old status “Heat 75” where it should’ve shown the status as OFF. This has happened and continues to happen many times with the service / app combo. Very disappointed that our community has chosen this service. In addition to needing Wi-Fi as the provided cell service does not cover our community. This constant dis-connectivity issue between SmartRent and thermostat is enough for me to write this negative review

When I found out my apartment complex was getting this new this app put in to our front door, lights, and thermostat I was excited to control everything from my phone. Especially my front door lock. But if it were up to me I would rather go back to everything being manual again. The main thing I really wanted to use SmartRent was for the front door lock. I am in a rush sometimes in the morning so to be able to just close the door behind me and lock the door when I get in the elevator was great! Till I come home and find out my door is still unlocked even though SmartRent said it was locked. I called this app and they said they still are experiencing bugs with SmartRent . I’m so surprised SmartRent has a rating of 4 stars with all the other negative comments. SmartRent is great when it works... But I am still scared to even trust it.

SmartRent has been a huge mess since I had to install it after my apartment company made some “modernization” changes that forced the use of SmartRent. Unfortunately the developers of SmartRent continue to not fix major bugs in SmartRent , such as SmartRent failing to properly sync with the thermostat. The source of truth for the thermostat status should always be the thermostat, not SmartRent ! That’s basic good app design! I switched my air conditioner from off to on using app and then later wanted to change the temp, at which point SmartRent shows the aircon is off while thermostat shows it’s on (and I feel the cold air so I know the thermostat is true). Even force closing SmartRent and restarting it shows the wrong status in SmartRent . And then you think about that SmartRent can unlock your door, great to feel unsafe in my own home thanks to Smart Rent!

There is so much wasted potential with SmartRent. Hard to understand why there are so many negative reviews and yet no improvements. The door will unlock MAYBE a quarter of the time. We will leave for the day and turn off the AC only to come home 8 hours later and find it on. The lights might turn on (if at all) about 5 minutes after we turn them on in SmartRent . I’ve contacted customer service multiple times and have been told over and over these are not their issues to solve. Maintenance in our apartment complex is definitely not cut out to fix major IT buggy problems, so we haven’t had any resolution for over 8 months. I have no doubt this was the cheapest option and that’s why it was chosen by our complex. No one wants to accept responsibility so instead we are left with a half-baked app that is meant to be used daily.

Compared to other smart systems this is by far the worst! They only allow you to integrate their own products so that’s one issue. The system is slow, laggy and unresponsive. Takes upwards of 30 seconds for products to react sometimes not reacting at all. I tried troubleshooting with their team and no one has an answer to it.

As a resident I tried to add to my smart home by buying additional smart plugs. I bought the plugs from them and they sent me three plugs that were not compatible with the system. Then when I tried to get a refund they have not been able to find the person within the organization who handles that. Now I’m out $90 for weeks with nothing to show for it.

Just a terribly run organization with a terrible product

Thanks to this app, my thermostat never works. I'm probably being incorrectly charged because of this. In the summer when it's hot, the A/C says it's on but never comes on. In the winter in the midst of a winter storm, the heat says it's on but it is freezing cold inside the unit. Not to mention, when I turn the heat or A/C off, they come on again on their own. This includes when I'm out of town. I'm so happy that this app was installed and I now have no control over how my thermostat functions! It's the greatest joy I have as a renter! Renters love technology that doesn't work, leaves them in unsuitable living conditions, and gets them wrongfully charged for the heat & a/c they can't even use! Excellent job using capitalism and technology exploiting renters. 5 Stars!!!

I have tried many smart home apps but this one is the worst. It periodically logs me out for no discernible reason and it clearly won the contract for my apartment complex because it was the lowest bidder and cheapest.

It’s very buggy and the smart lock button does not actually tell you if the door is already locked or unlocked. It just switches from locked to unlocked in SmartRent without any reference to the status of the actual lock. This means sometimes SmartRent says ‘locked’ even though the door is unlocked so I have to press ‘unlock’ and then ‘lock’ which is very clunky and annoying. Also if I am out and I need to check to see if I remembered to lock the door, I can’t rely on SmartRent to tell me if it’s locked.

SmartRent could be so much better but right now it isn’t. 1/5

Th this app app has been a source of immense frustration for me. As a resident, I am compelled to use it to access my rented apartment, but unfortunately, it falls short in several critical areas.
Functionality Issues: SmartRent simply doesn’t work properly. The most significant pain point is the inability to open or close the door reliably. As someone who relies on SmartRent for access, this is a major concern.
Persistent Offline Status: The system seems to be perpetually offline. Whether it’s due to technical glitches or poor connectivity, this inconsistency undermines the very purpose of SmartRent .
In summary, the this app app has left me feeling trapped and frustrated. I hope the company addresses these issues promptly to improve the user experience for everyone.

My apartment installed the new lock and thermostat controlled by SmartRent four days ago. The first day the thermostat didn’t work at all and only gave the option to turn it off, but customer support rebooted it and it now works. Complaints I have so far relate to the displayed temperature in SmartRent (always says 79 when the thermostat is turned off, even if the thermostat itself says something different) and the door lock status not being accurate. I haven’t seen it say it was locked when it was actually unlocked, but it seems like every morning or overnight it resets and says it’s unlocked even though it’s locked. Currently works to lock/unlock door and change thermostat setting, which is nice, but I would absolutely love SmartRent if it worked without issue.

Z-Wave? Really? My landlord made my apartment “smart” with a door lock, thermostat, and some cheap plug in controller. The thermostat won’t stay connected, the plug in rarely works. The door lock is the only reliable thing in this “smart” system. I have used actual smart home equipment from thermostats to cameras and smoke detectors that actually worked. With this system you get no notifications when your door locks or unlocks. The only notification the lock sends is when the lock “jams”. About the dumbest “smart” system I’ve ever used. I still have to get up and manually change the thermostat. Right now it’s set to heat, yet SmartRent shows the ac is still set. And for all this smart technology I’m paying a $10 fee added to my lease. After the first year I figure I will have paid for this pointless and otherwise useless equipment.

Some menus with adjustable slide bars do not display properly on mobile thus not usable. Desync between the devices and SmartRent . Basically change something on SmartRent and either nothing will happen or often the opposite of the intended happens. Overall needs fine tuning, quality control, and more field testing for It to be at its full potential. More option for fan control and speed would be nice.

Auto control is the best feature with the ability to set a low/high limit for temps to stay between. This should be a focus and the core aspect of the HVAC component of SmartRent

Great idea but needs to be reliable. Haven't noticed any issues with the doors but we always use the security lock anyway. the thermostat turns off/on randomly even when not on auto. SmartRent only works to control the thermostat temperature but doesn't respond when changing functions like COOL/HEAT/AUTO/OFF. If the thermostat functions were 100% accurate and reliable I would give it 5 stsrs, because that's the main usage we have for the sistem in general. Nothing like waking up in the middle of the night all sweaty because the ac turned off on its own or coming back home from a long day to realize its still running when you dnt need it.

My apartment building installed smart locks which I use SmartRent for.
- Overall SmartRent works reliably and intuitively, but find the local caching quite misleading. You unlock your apartment with it and next time you open SmartRent it might initially still show you that it’s unlocked for a few seconds. That’s just not a great thing to see when you expect your apartment is locked.
- No integration with HomeKit. Would be nice to have.
- Coming back home my internet isn’t always the best in the hallway. When SmartRent shows me “disconnected from internet” I mostly just quit and restart SmartRent because the “reconnect” button neither has good visual feedback that anything is happening when tapping it, nor do I think it even works reliably.

SmartRent is better than when I first installed almost 4 years ago. I really only use the thermostat and lock option and it used be be very unresponsive and sometimes just unusable (e.g. you’d press lock and it wouldn’t do anything or it would say the door is locked but it isn’t). I haven’t had an issue like that in while. Sometimes the status (unlocked vs locked, temperature inside, etc) does not update when SmartRent is opened or if SmartRent stays open. You’ll have to manually close and reopen SmartRent . I’m also having an issue with Alexa - if the thermostat is in “off” mode, she cannot communicate with it or turn it on. She just says it isn’t accepting requests. Other than those issues, it’s improved. I do think there should be an option to set your own lock password and it would be great if there was an Apple Watch app.

my apartment complex switched over to this app so i didn't really have a choice. so far i've noticed that the thermostat controls don't work half the time, not just on SmartRent but on the wall thermostat as well. i can change it to heat and up the temp and it just doesn't kick on, very frustrating when you wake up at 5 am freezing and the heat won't turn on. the lock on the front door has also jammed a few times in the couple months we've been using this app but at least SmartRent tells you when the door is jammed. there is no warning about the thermostat not working, been waiting 20 minutes so far for the heat to kick on and still nothing.

Works just as it states it will. No issues that I’ve run into. That being said, I wish it connected to Bluetooth and would automatically unlock your door as you walk up to it, much like the August lock does. With Smart Rent, I have to take out my phone, unlock it, open the folder that holds SmartRent , open SmartRent , open the front door section and finally unlock my door. With the August lock, I don’t even have to take my phone out.

I also find it interesting that it connects to Alexa but there’s no app for my smart watch.

It’s slow to respond from SmartRent where I’ll have to hit the command a couple times for it to respond. It was also connected to my WiFi but now refuses to even find it when the wifi is connected to everything else in the home. I tried troubleshooting but it’s trying to tell me our brand new thermostat has a dead battery when the Home Screen says battery is full. Definitely don’t see what the hype was about with getting these in our apartments.

Called the customer service line through SmartRent and they picked up after hours, stayed on the line with me until issue was resolved and thought of the box and went above and beyond to help me get the issue fixed!! So impressed with this quality of customer service!!! Jeremy specifically helped me - he was amazing. Also Angel who is one of the field managers who installs the units was the one who came out after hours to fix my issue - great teamwork from this team! Highly recommend

I LOVE the smart rent app and lock. The lock that I have is very easy to use and I can control lock and thermostat from my phone. I had a little issue with it when I moved in but all I had to do was use an L wrench to remove battery cover take one of the batteries out and wait a couple seconds then replace battery. It basically fixed itself. I also like the fact that there’s a security alarm in the lock itself to let you know when someone is messing with your lock