First, the good news: both are renter-safe retrofits
A retrofit lock leaves the parts of your door a landlord cares about completely alone. The exterior hardware stays put, the keyway stays put, and your key keeps working — the smart part bolts on behind the door, out of sight. Because nothing about the outside of the lock changes, there’s no new hole to patch and no “alteration” to argue about; you can pop either lock off and hand back a door that looks factory-stock. That reversibility is why we rate both as our top tier for renters. It’s still worth a quick read of your lease and your state’s tenant rules before you change anything about a door — a two-minute check now beats a deposit dispute later. If you want the deeper how-to, our guide on fitting a smart lock over your existing deadbolt walks through the whole thing.
Install: two ways to grab the same deadbolt
The locks reach the same result — turning your existing deadbolt from the inside — by slightly different routes. The Augustunscrews the little interior thumb-turn from your deadbolt and mounts its round body onto the deadbolt’s existing interior plate, then turns the bolt with a motor. It runs on AA batteries and takes about ten minutes with a screwdriver. The one catch is compatibility: August fits standard single-cylinder deadbolts, which covers most apartments, but you should confirm your specific deadbolt is on the list before you buy — that’s the honest con here, a small homework step that can trip you up.
The SwitchBot takes an even lighter-touch approach: it adhesive-mountson the inside of the door, sitting over your existing thumb-turn and grabbing it to rotate it. There are no screws into the door at all — it’s stuck on with a strong adhesive base that peels off clean at move-out. The trade-off is that adhesive mounting is fussier about fit: you need enough clearance around the thumb-turn and the right door thickness, so measure against the listing first. Either way, the exterior and your key are untouched, and both come off without a trace.
The hub question — and getting to your phone
This is the single biggest practical difference, and it’s why we call the August the simpler default. The August has Wi-Fi built in, so remote lock/unlock, auto-lock and alerts to your phone work straight out of the box — no extra box to buy, no bridge to plug in across the room. The SwitchBot talks over Bluetooth on its own, which is fine when your phone is in the apartment, but to lock the door from work, get remote status, or add voice control you need to buy the separate SwitchBot Hub. That’s SwitchBot’s honest con: it’s more parts to buy and more to set up to reach the same “lock it from anywhere” convenience the August includes. Neither lock charges a subscription for any of this — the remote access is free once the hardware is in place.
Keypads, codes & guest access
Both locks keep your physical key as the always-there fallback, which is reassuring the first time a battery dies. For punching in a code at the door instead of carrying a key, though, neitherlock includes a keypad in the box — each treats it as a separate accessory. That’s the other half of the August’s con: the base lock is the more affordable of the two, but the moment you want guest codes at the door you’re adding an accessory, so the “cheaper” option gets closer in price once you match features. SwitchBot sells its own adhesive keypad within a broader ecosystem, and August’s keypad is an add-on too. If having a keypad bundled inmatters to you, it’s worth seeing how the closely related Yale version stacks up in our August vs Yale comparison, because Yale packages a keypad with the same retrofit design.
App, automations & ecosystem
SwitchBot’s real appeal is breadth. It sits inside a wide ecosystem of sensors, keypads and app automations, so if you like the idea of the lock talking to a contact sensor or firing a routine, it’s the more expandable platform — the pick for a genuine feature-maximalist. The August keeps its app deliberately simple: it does lock, unlock, auto-lock and remote access reliably and doesn’t ask you to think much beyond that. Whichever you choose, treat the account like the front door it controls: set a unique password and turn on two-factor login in the app, exactly as the FTC advises for any internet-connected device in your home. A smart lock is only as trustworthy as the login sitting in front of it.
Batteries, auto-lock & living with it day to day
Both locks run on batteries you can swap in about a minute — the August takes AAs, and the SwitchBot uses a rechargeable pack or AAs depending on the model — and both warn you in the app well before the cells actually die. Because each one keeps your original key, a dead battery is never a lockout: you just use the key you already carry while you swap in fresh cells, then you’re back to keyless. That fallback is a quiet but real advantage of a retrofit over any fully keyless design, and it’s worth remembering the first time your phone battery and your lock battery both pick a bad morning to run flat.
Auto-lock is the feature renters end up loving most, and both locks offer it: set the door to relock itself after a set delay and you stop standing on the sidewalk trying to remember whether you actually locked up. The difference is reach. The August handles auto-lock andremote status checks over its built-in Wi-Fi, so you can confirm the door from the bus. The SwitchBot auto-locks perfectly well on its own over Bluetooth, but seeing the door’s status or relocking it while you’re across town is, once again, the job of the Hub. For most renters the day-to-day loop is boring in the best way — walk up, get let in, the door relocks behind you — and the August delivers that whole loop the moment it’s on the door, with nothing else to buy and one simple app to learn.
Will it fit your door?
Before you buy either lock, do the two-minute fit check — it’s the step that saves a return. The August needs a standard single-cylinder deadbolt (a bolt with a thumb-turn inside and a keyed cylinder outside), which is what most apartments already have, but you should still match your exact deadbolt against August’s compatibility list. The SwitchBot’s adhesive body needs a flat, clean patch of door around the interior thumb-turn to stick to, plus the right door thickness and enough clearance for it to grab and rotate the turn, so measure against the listing first. Ornate or oversized thumb-turns, very thin doors, and a deadbolt that’s already stiff to turn by hand are the usual reasons a retrofit doesn’t seat well. A motor can only turn a bolt that turns smoothly, so if yours sticks, work it a few times and add a little dry graphite to the cylinder before you mount anything — a five-minute habit that keeps either lock from straining and draining its batteries.
Price & the verdict
On price the gap is real. The August lands in the middle of the market, while the SwitchBot is the priciest lock in this class by a wide margin— and that’s before you add the Hub it needs for remote control. For most renters, that makes the August Wi-Fi Smart Lock the default: it costs less, installs in minutes, and its built-in Wi-Fi means you get the whole “lock it from anywhere” experience without a second purchase. Choose the SwitchBotif you specifically want the screw-free adhesive install, the wider ecosystem of accessories and automations, and you’re happy to buy the Hub to unlock it all. Still weighing the whole category? See our best smart locks ranking and the picks built specifically for renters, or read our full SwitchBot Lock review before you commit.
