TECH

Security system leaves Brits locked up

Families across the UK complained of being locked out of their houses on Friday, after a system failure at smart security company Yale left many reportedly unable to open their front doors.
Yale had warned customers on Wednesday that it would be undertaking “unplanned maintenance” which it said could cause some “connection issues”.
However, in an update on Thursday, it said while carrying out this maintenance it had come across an “unforeseen issue”, which had meant its app was temporarily unavailable. This glitch appears to have prevented customers from being able to get in and out of their homes, and from being able to arm and disarm their alarms.
Writing on Twitter, one customer wrote: “We’re stuck in the house now. This isn’t good enough Yale.”
Another said: “Wondering if there is something going on with @YaleHome servers as can’t login to the app to switch my alarm off! Ridiculous! Friends with the same alarm having problems too!Yale claimed nobody had been locked in or out of their home by the glitch, saying: “Customers can still enter and leave their home using their smart locks, as these are operated independently.”
It said this afternoon that it was restoring its system to normal operation, and said most of its customers should now have access to all app features.
However, some still complained they were unable to turn their alarms on and off, with one having written on Twitter: “Sorry Yale, but the issue hasn’t been resolved. I’ve deleted & reloaded the app & it either crashes or, when it does eventually log in, says my smart hub is offline & won’t arm or disarm!”
This is not the first time smart systems have failed, and over the summer, Google Home and Chromecast devices went down across the world due to a glitch.
An outage at Amazon Web Services last year, meanwhile, prevented users from being able to turn on their lights and control their locks.”



H. Bolland