Will a smart lock still let me in if the internet is down?

For the locks whose makers address it, yes at the door. August says its Wi-Fi Smart Lock is controlled at the door over Bluetooth, and that its servers are what let you control it from away. Schlage says the Sense Pro keeps hands-free unlocking, Bluetooth app access and key codes during a Wi-Fi outage, and doesn't address remote access during one.

Is a power cut the same as an internet outage?

No, and it's often worse, because the router goes down too. Ring says its alarm base station holds up to 24 hours of backup power, and Wyze gives its Sense Hub 10 hours. A wired Nest Cam Indoor (3rd gen) has no battery, so it records nothing while the power is out, even though Google says it can hold up to an hour of events when only the internet is down.

Will Your Smart Home Work Without Internet? What Makers Say

A smart home can keep much of its work going when the internet drops, but the line runs through individual products rather than whole brands or ecosystems. Makers that address outages in writing describe three outcomes: the device carries on as normal inside your home, it keeps doing its main job while the app and alerts stop, or it stops altogether.

Here is what the makers in our records say, why a Wi-Fi or Matter label doesn’t settle the question, and where to look before you buy.

What happens when the internet goes down

What happens	Product	What the maker says
Carries on at home	IKEA DIRIGERA hub	IKEA says it designed its smart products “to function even without an internet connection or the need for a remote server”. Control from away runs through IKEA’s cloud.
Carries on at home	Philips Hue Bridge Pro	Hue’s own setup guide marks “Local control (offline)” as supported.
Carries on at home	Lutron Pico remote	Lutron documents direct pairing with compatible Caséta controls without a hub. In a hub-based Caséta setup, it says the Pico “does not require internet, but it does require power to the smart hub.”
Carries on at home	TP-Link Tapo S505 switch	“Your connected devices at home remain accessible via the Tapo app even when the household goes offline.”
Carries on at home	Schlage Sense Pro	During a power or Wi-Fi outage, “hands-free unlocking, Schlage Home app access via Bluetooth and key code access are all still active.”
Keeps its main job	Nest Learning Thermostat (4th gen)	Offline, “you can’t use the app to control it. Some features might also be unavailable. However, you can still use the thermostat itself to set the temperature in your home.”
Keeps its main job	Ring Alarm kit (2nd gen)	“Your device will remain armed, and the Ring Alarm siren will still function”, but you can’t reach it through the app.
Keeps its main job	Rachio 3	It keeps running the schedules stored in its own memory. Weather-based features stop.
Stops	Ring Wired Doorbell 4K Pro	Offline, “you will not be able to view live video, get alerts, or record events around your home.”
Stops	Flume 2 water monitor	“The Bridge must be connected to Wi-Fi at all times for the Flume to operate.”

Control from away is a separate matter. Where these makers describe it, it runs through their servers, so the outage question is really about what still works while you’re home.

The middle group has limits worth reading

“Keeps its main job” comes with the maker’s own boundaries. Rachio says a fixed schedule keeps running “indefinitely, as long as it remains powered on and has not been factory reset.” Its weather-driven Flex schedules are different: the controller holds about two weeks of forecast-based watering, then falls back to a Rachio default. Google doesn’t list which Nest thermostat features go away offline, so whether your schedule and Eco temperatures keep running isn’t something the outage page answers.

Alarms split the same way. The siren is local and the alert to your phone isn’t. Ring’s cellular backup keeps monitoring going through an outage, and it “requires a compatible Ring subscription”. Abode sells cellular backup on its Pro tier and says it “maintains connection in an internet outage”. Wyze made the opposite call for its Home Monitoring kit and offers no cellular backup. It says the system “will still work locally with its local siren,” and that a backup “would only be useful if your home has an internet outage during a home intrusion.”

Two leak sensors from one maker, two different answers

YoLink’s hub manual states it flatly: “Your Hub requires a full-time internet connection.” What that means depends on the sensor. The Water Leak Sensor 1 has no sounder, so the sensor itself makes no audible alarm, and its hub-dependent phone notification cannot get through. Check any separately configured device-to-device alarm or shutoff route on its own. The Water Leak Sensor 4 carries a 105 dB sounder on the sensor itself, so its local audible alarm remains available while the phone notification is lost.

Same maker, same hub, and the outcome is decided by a small speaker on the device. For anything where an alert is the whole point, check whether the device can make a noise on its own.

Wi-Fi and Matter labels don’t settle it

Wi-Fi doesn’t mean the cloud is required. The Tapo S505 is a Wi-Fi switch, and TP-Link documents it working at home without the internet. Some Wi-Fi products sit in between. For the Govee Strip Light 2 Pro, Govee documents four commands over your home network (on/off, brightness, colour and colour temperature) once LAN control is switched on in the Govee app. The scenes and effects are run from Govee’s app and aren’t among them, and Govee doesn’t say whether the local route survives a restart with no internet.

Matter is a good sign, not a guarantee. Google’s help page says “Matter-enabled devices work locally over your existing home wireless network without the need to connect to the cloud over the internet.” But the Nest Learning Thermostat (4th gen) is a Matter device, and Google’s outage page promises only the thermostat’s own controls. It doesn’t say whether a Matter controller on your network can still reach it.

The hub and the voice assistant are part of the answer

A device that runs locally still needs whatever it talks to. Eve says there’s “No Eve cloud” behind the Eve Energy plug, which runs through your platform’s hub, so the hub’s outage behaviour becomes the plug’s. For the Pico, check the setup route: Lutron documents direct pairing to Caséta controls without a hub; its hub-based setup needs the hub powered.

Home Assistant says it “works fully without” its optional Home Assistant Cloud subscription, which covers remote access and the Alexa and Google links. That is a statement about the paid plan. For the Home Assistant Green itself, Home Assistant says it keeps your data locally, so “you can access your smart home even when the Internet is down.” The same page says the first setup needs an internet connection.

Voice is where the documentation thins out. Google says the Matter devices its Google Home Speaker controls work over your home network, but doesn’t say which voice features keep working without the internet. Amazon’s own pages for the Echo Dot (5th gen) don’t state its offline behaviour either. If your household runs the lights by voice, a switch or remote whose maker documents it working offline, like the Pico, is worth having beside the speaker.

How to check a product before you buy

Every product page in our library has a “Works without the internet” line under Maintenance reality, linked to the maker’s statement where one exists. “Partly” means the maker describes a split, so read which half you rely on. “Not established” or “Inconclusive” means we don’t have a maker’s answer, which does not establish that it fails offline. And a maker’s “local” about one feature doesn’t cover the whole product: look for a sentence about outages, like the ones quoted above.

Which fits your home

If outages are common where you live, the products that fit are the ones whose makers state local control in writing, paired with a hub whose maker states it too, as IKEA and Hue do. If alerts are the reason you bought a device (a leak, a break-in), what changes the answer is whether it makes a noise on its own and whether keeping alerts alive needs a paid cellular plan. If you mainly want control from away, check the required internet connection and server service as well as the subscription. An outage may remove the remote control you rely on.

Cameras have their own version of this question, covered in can security cameras record locally. And for the permanent version of an outage, when the maker’s servers go away for good, see what happens when a smart home company shuts down.