Trying to get my new smart lock to talk to my old thermostat took three entire days

I bought a new smart lock that said it worked with my existing smart home stuff. The box said setup was 15 minutes. It took me over 72 hours to get it to actually see and control my old thermostat through the app. The problem was a hidden setting in the router about device isolation that I never knew existed. I had to dig through four different old forum threads from 2018 to find the fix. Has anyone else had a simple gadget turn into a multi-day tech support nightmare?

2 comments

2 Comments

lisaf388d ago

Honestly I used to believe all the ads about smart homes being easy. Tbh after my own router nightmare last month trying to add a simple plug, I totally get it now. Jessica_ross38 is right about being unpaid tech support. You just end up in some old forum thread where the last reply is from seven years ago. The companies make it sound so simple but they never plan for old tech to talk to new stuff. It just makes you want to go back to regular locks and dial thermostats.

jessica_ross388d ago

My old printer had a hidden admin password from 2010 that bricked it during a simple driver update last year. It feels like every device now has some legacy setting buried so deep the company forgot it exists. The promise of things just working together is totally fake if you own anything older than two years. We're all just unpaid tech support digging through ancient forum posts for answers.