SimpliSafe - Indoor Home Security System (8-piece) - White

Home security used to involve having a company come to your home and professionally install a wired or wireless system (at a high cost, usually), but in recent years, do-it-yourself systems have come to market, and Simplisafe was one of the first, and is one of the most popular even today. The Simplisafe system can be bought in premade kits or you can build one yourself by adding what you want. Mine came with the basics – a couple of motion sensors, some door/windows sensors, a keypad, and a base station that connects all of them together. You can add more sensors if you like, such as a fire or water alarm, indoor or outdoor cameras, a video doorbell, smart lock, and more from their site or at many Best Buy stores. The base station is shaped somewhat like a white flower vase, with a ring on the bottom that glows blue when armed or reddish when it’s updating or setting up. Via instructions in the kit, you are walked through connecting each of your sensors to the base station wirelessly, and the base even talks at times to guide you along. Once each sensor or device is connected, you place them where they need to go. The base uses WiFi, but also has a cellular chip in as a backup, so if your WiFi goes down the base can still notify their monitoring station – they tell me they now use Verizon towers for the secondary monitoring, but if you have poor reception in your area call them as other arrangements might be possible. A backup battery will keep the base working for up to 24 hours. The sensors and devices can be put up on doors and walls via adhesive that’s included, but I use my own 3M heavy duty to be extra secure – you can also use included tiny screws to screw them in place. The keypad has a base that you put next to a door, and it slides onto it, and the door/window sensors (2 pieces each), are placed so they’ll be able to detect if a door or window is open. Batteries (included) range from flat watch type for some sensors to Lithium for others, and AA for the keypads; they can last up to 5 years according to Simplisafe, but of course this will depend on how much you use the sensors and other factors. Motion sensors can be placed on walls or simply sat on furniture, but make note of instructions if you have pets so as not to get false alarms. Overall I found the setup process to be pretty simple compared to others I’ve helped friends put up, and I’d say I had the whole thing up and running in about an hour, taking my time to do it right. Now technically, you don’t have to have a monitoring plan in order for this to work, but if you don’t have one, it will simply go off and make noise if someone were to enter your home and not put in a keypad code correctly… no one will be alerted to call the police, nor will you – it just makes a loud noise. For around 33-cents a day, you can get a basic plan that allows you to use the app to self-monitor your system yourself, and if you add cameras, 30 day storage for video clips are added. For 99-cents per day, you get 24/7 professional monitoring where they’ll call you to make sure everything is ok, verify via your cameras if there’s an intruder in your home (with your permission), and the ability to arm/disarm your system remotely from the app, along with a lifetime warranty on the items in your system. If you can swing it per month, this is of course the best plan to go with. I’ve helped family members put in Simplisafe in their homes before mine, and they all have no negative comments about it. I haven’t had any issues as well. Testing it, I got a call within seconds when it went off from the monitoring station. One battery on one door sensor was bad, and they walked me through replacing it which took no time at all, as the sensors have panels that slide up for battery swapping (you don’t need to remove the whole sensor to do this). These days, home security is more important than ever, and it’s good to have several layers of security, such as a more traditional system like this, but also by adding cameras so you can also be alerted if people are lurking around the outside of your home BEFORE they get in. So far, knock on wood, I have no major complaints about Simplisafe other than I do wish their monitoring plans were a little cheaper, but I still easily recommend it to people. They regularly go on sale too!

SimpliSafe - Indoor Home Security Kit (8-piece) (Includes KEYPAD, 2 Motion Detectors, 4 Entry Sensors, Base Station) Safety and security can be completely under your control. That includes features and price. My SimpliSafe system will eventually be more elaborate. Adding features can be done at a reasonable price and won’t require a service call with that unnecessary expense. I’ll sometimes have my property monitored and sometimes I’ll manage without monitoring. Easy to accomplish when I’m in charge. SimpliSafe does home security monitoring quite well, for less, without the bullying, the inscrutable contracts, and the obstacles to you leaving. SimpliSafe isn’t that company. SETUP: My system is fully installed, in less than an afternoon. The entire setup begins after setting up an account on your phone. Step one begins by plugging in your BASE STATION. Location does not seem to be especially critical, but somewhere central seemed reasonable. Distribute your SENSORS to your preferred locations, remembering to yank the battery protection sleeves out. All sensors have adhesive pads, so think first, then attach. (I eventually used the screws, too.) Same for the KEYPAD. I chose NOT to adhere it permanently, because I wanted it with me for setup, and I really wasn’t sure where to place it. The entire setup can be accomplished from the keypad, but it is so much easier using the phone App. The KEYPAD is (less) easy to use. That black screen at the top is actually a large 4-way rocker pad. Your selection choices are always at one of the 4 edges where you press to make a selection. Now comes the “discovery” process. Each sensor has a slightly recessed button which I depressed. Both the App and the Base station acknowledge when a new sensor is added to your system. I was done adding all my sensors in about 15 minutes. It took longer for me to decide where to put the various sensors. SimpliSafe has thought through this technology pretty completely. At no point did a sensor fail to register. My home is all on one floor and extends 2800 square feet with a decorative brick archway which somewhat divides the home. No problem for me, although those of you with rambling mansions might have issues I didn’t see. MONITORING: I’ll talk about monitoring because it does have value, if only to get (potential) home insurance discounts. SimpliSafe offers monitoring at several different price/service tiers. My descriptions will be OVERSIMPLIFIED to keep this review shorter and you will want to get updated pricing anyway. STANDARD MONITORING is $19.99/months for the basic response to a triggered alarm that results in a call to police, fire or medical help depending on the sensor that has been triggered. No video storage for cameras attached to the system at this price. FAST PROTECT™MONITORING adds $10 to the above price, includes those features and offers video storage and more advanced features. If you only want access to video storage and you will do your own Self Monitoring with Camera Recordings, the total charge is $9.99. Or, the entire system is fully operable, but without monitoring with no subscription fee. WISH LIST: Not complaints, just comments. . . Every home in my region has pre-installed fire, smoke or CO alarms. It seems that SimpliSafe could either interconnect or at least sympathetically react to and repeat the alarm within the SimpliSafe ecosystem. SimpliSafe’s own fire, smoke, CO detectors are surely fine, too, but another solution should be possible. The ENTRY sensors sit a bit high off my door frame surface. They link back to the base perfectly fine, so I suppose they look worse than they work, operationally. As an end user, it’s hard to have a real time awareness of device status, especially the motion detectors. I would love a tiny LED activity light as long as it doesn’t shorten battery life. OBSERVATIONS and SUMMARY: The SimpliSafe system has continued to evolve. More sensors and features have been added. Setup has become very simple, with the App becoming a guide in your hand. This kit’s particular collection of sensors along with a Base Station and Keypad is a good place to start. I’ve become very familiar with the SimpliSafe product. While this package has enough flexibility for my purposes today, I’m ready to add some other sensors. [A water sensor is next plus a 2nd Keypad for the Master Bedroom] As noted above, interoperability with existing detectors is a missing element. Other than that concern, this is a great security system. It is well built, and it has proven able to accomplish what it promises. All connections are very stable. Mostly, I love the idea of being in charge of my security system. And, it’s not as if there is a price penalty; in fact, it’s quite the opposite. I’m saving money and feeling secure. Recommended.

The Simply Safe - Indoor Home Security Kit (8-piece) without a camera is a very nice system. I did experience what my Android system called a bug during setup when prompted to update the firmware however. It kept cycling through repeating the same steps but eventually, I got out and went to a different section in the settings and found that it had actually updated even though it did not act like it worked. Once I got past that and began installing the rest of the system everything went very smooth. The on-screen prompts and the instructions were very easy to follow. The keypad and all of the sensors come with mounting tape pre-installed so you just have to peel away the wall side to mount them. There are screws provided with the sensors if you want to install them that way as well. However, I only saw one screw hole on the keypad mounting plate and did not see the screw for some reason. No big deal it had four separate pieces of mounting tape on it. First, you download the app and then make an account. After that, you set up your base station and connect it to your WIFI network. No wired connection option here and the base station is the only thing with a power supply the rest are all battery-powered. Once that is all done you move to setting up the rest of your system. As I previously mentioned the set is smooth and easy. The whole time I was doing it I was very excited because I could tell it was a very well-made system. I love having sensors on my doors and having motion sensors in the house for when we are away. The motion sensors are designed to be pet-friendly with explicit instructions on how to mount them depending on the type of pet you have. These systems can be expanded with just about every kind of sensor you can think of from glass-breaking sensors to fire alarms and even CO sensors Simply safe has you covered. Once you get a base system installed you just have to decide what you want to add to it depending on your situation. Once everything is set up you get a chime when a door is opened and can set your system for Home, away or Off. You do have to use your pin to change it after you choose a setting each time. At the end of set up you can choose from three different plans or not one at all. If you do not choose any plan your functionality will be somewhat limited. I have one sensor pretty far away and if you do that make sure you connect it to your base station before mounting it by pushing the little button on it. I am elated with my new Simply safe system and I look forward to expanding it more. I feel like Simply Safe brings forward a great value for homeowners with a wide range of choices at reasonable prices. That along with the immense expansion capabilities and ease of set up make Simply Safe a winner in my book and a great choice that I will not hesitate to recommend!