Schlage Locks Up Smart Entry Market for Q1 2017
Smart Lock interest grew in 2017 as consumers holiday purchases turned into Saturday morning honey-dos. The big winners in Q1 were Schlage, August and Kwikset. The rest of the competitive landscape is littered with products that have been disappointing consumers persistently.
Schlage is leaps and bounds ahead of their competition, not only seeing increases in both buzz and perceived UX, but also almost double the demand of their closest competitor. Wow. What is Schlage doing to consistently beat out their traditional competition like Kwikset and Yale as well as the newcomers like August and Aeon Labs?
Well, it’s not their app. Schlage is lacking on the App side of the Smart Lock experience. August does a better job of delighting consumers with their app interface and their integration with Comcast Xfinity Home. Schlage and Kwikset, traditional hardware (yes, they actually cut and cast metal to make their products) companies have been lacking in their app ecosystem for Smart Lock customers.
So why do consumers love Schlage locks but hate the apps? Why isn’t August dominating if their App is so much better? Turns out installation is important. When we dig into the details of how consumers talk about the installation experience a deeper story emerges…
Schlage is just simply easier to install. Schlage customers are frustrated (the red bar) half as much as their competition. They are almost twice as delighted by the installation experience as August. Simplicity sells, period. When we look at both August and Kwikset, we see frustrations with the initial router connection, software/app issues as well as issues around wiring and help from the company itself with installation. That means that both August and Kwikset could gain on Schlage by just improving their out of the box experience. That’s it!
Want more? Want to dig deeper to understand who is using these locks? What to see how August is performing across their products? You can get access to these tools yourself, using the Argus Analyzer. Learn more by clicking below.
