August, Inc. is a

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

-based home automation company, focusing on

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for Wireless LAN, local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by ...

connected door locks and doorbell cameras. The company was founded in November 2012 by Yves Béhar and Jason Johnson. On October 19, 2017, Swedish lock manufacturer

Assa Abloy Assa Abloy AB is a Swedish Group whose offerings include products and services related to locks, doors, gates, and entrance automation. Related products and services include controlling access and confirming identities with keys, cards, tags, ...

announced an acquisition of August Home. The deal closed in December 2017. As of July 2018, August Home had sold over one million smart locks and cameras.

Products

In May 2013, August released their first smart lock. The lock had a metal frame and was controlled using Bluetooth 4.0 with a smartphone app. As with other August door locks, the device clips on to an existing deadbolt on the inside portion of a door, still allowing the use of a traditional key. A Wi-Fi bridge was later released allowing remote access to the lock, and the use of

virtual assistants Virtual may refer to: * Virtual image, an apparent image of an object (as opposed to a real object), in the study of optics * Virtual (horse), a thoroughbred racehorse * Virtual channel, a channel designation which differs from that of the actual ...

(such as

Amazon Alexa Amazon Alexa is a virtual assistant technology marketed by Amazon and implemented in software applications for smart phones, tablets, wireless smart speakers, and other electronic appliances. Alexa was largely developed from a Polish speech s ...

). In October 2015, the company debuted a suite of new products including a second generation smart lock, a

smart doorbell A smart doorbell is an internet-connected doorbell that notifies the home owner on their device (smartphone or any other gadget) when a visitor arrives at the door. It activates when the visitor presses the button of the doorbell, or alternativel ...

, and a keypad for users without a phone. The company also announced August Access, a platform to let couriers from Postmates, Handy, and other services get access to the lock through a one time code. The service was later expanded to include

Walmart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores in the United States and 23 other ...

in select U.S. markets. A

HomeKit Apple Home is a smart home platform developed by Apple Inc. that lets users configure, communicate with and control smart appliances using Apple devices. Apple Home communicates with devices using HomeKit, the software framework and communicati ...

compatible version of the lock was also released the following year. A cheaper version of the smart lock was released in 2017, along with a

Z-Wave Z-Wave is a wireless communications protocol used primarily for residential and commercial building automation. It is a mesh network using low-energy radio waves to communicate from device to device, allowing for wireless control of smart home d ...

compatible version designed for professional installation. The new locks also added motion sensors to know whether the door is open or closed. The August Access platform expanded to include locks for

Yale Yale University is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and one of the nine colonial colleges ch ...

and Emtek in January 2018.

Security concerns

In August 2016, a white-hat hacker showcased a vulnerability with August's one-time access codes allowing someone to use them once expired at

DEF CON DEF CON (also written as DEFCON, Defcon, or DC) is a Computer security conference, hacker convention held annually in Las Vegas Valley, Las Vegas, Nevada. The first DEF CON took place in June 1993 and today many attendees at DEF CON include comp ...

. The company patched the issue later that month. MIT conducted further research on potential vulnerabilities in the security of the device. They attempted accessing the device using multiple methods, none of which were successful. The methods they tested were the following: password attack, “I’m Not Listening” attacks, changing date and time settings, snooping Bluetooth packages, decompiling the app, sniffing TCP packets,

man-in-the-middle attack In cryptography and computer security, a man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack, or on-path attack, is a cyberattack where the attacker secretly relays and possibly alters the communications between two parties who believe that they are directly communi ...

s, and retrieving owner permissions offline keys. Out of all of these attempts, only one was theoretically plausible. By snooping Bluetooth packets, persons with malicious intent could attempt a “ brute force” method by guessing the ciphertext necessary to unlock the door. However, the chance of guessing this combination of bits is one in over 18.4 quintillion, and the time required to attempt all sequences is projected to be over four years.

References

{{reflist

External links

August Home Website
Home automation companies 2012 establishments in California Products introduced in 2013 Companies based in San Francisco Lock manufacturers