I'm in the market for a new system now. Does anyone have experience with monitoring or system insights?
Noticed a few bad reviews on how monitoring is outsourced to local companies with no oversight or control.
I guess if that's true, then the problem will be that people's anecdotal experiences will vary depending on where they are.
I've had Simplisafe for five years now, and have had only good experiences. The monitoring is professional and fast responding. Have had 2 false alarms in those 5 years (entirely my fault) and the police were sent out promptly both times. Had one burning food incident that set off the fire alarm, and they responded quickly to that as well with a call. When I couldn't get the alarm to stop going off in that fire incident, the monitoring person was able to give me accurate and fast instructions (as if they knew exactly what they were doing) on how to temporarily disable my system so it'd stop calling the monitoring until I got the smoke aired out.
Anyway, I've had no problems with the monitoring at all.
The system itself works well. Not sure what to say about it... all the sensors seem to sense the things they are supposed to sense. The various sensors do create a sort of mesh network between themselves, so if you have a larger house it is important to have a sensors placed in a way where they can communicate down the line to the base station.
Only other comment is that the base station by-default uses T-Mobile, so you have to have a good T-Mobile signal at your location. They can send you a part that changes the cell company to a different one, and it's pretty easy to swap out, but be prepared for that if you don't have good T-Mobile service in your area. It also can use a hardline CAT cable or wifi for a connection, but you want the cell connection to work as well because it isn't good to have security only when the power and internet are functioning.
I'm in the market for a new system now. Does anyone have experience with monitoring or system insights?
Noticed a few bad reviews on how monitoring is outsourced to local companies with no oversight or control.
We've had them for a year and overall they've been fine, calls are quick and people are professional. If you let them view cameras during an alarm they're helpful with helping to weed out any false alarms.
The biggest plus for them is they have a lot of reasonably priced sensors for everything from the basic door/window, motion and fire, to water and freeze sensors.
The downsides are that basic monitoring doesn't name sensors so harder to determine what's going on. There are some questionable decisions from a security standpoint regarding their key fobs too.
My bigger complaint is their software support is pathetic. The app doesn't support Geo fencing or customized notifications, their Alexa/Google support is basic at best, and they offer no sort of support for any sort of smart home integration, and despite lots of requests for it none of these have been added or addressed in years, despite the fact that my old "professional" system did all of this years ago.
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Noticed a few bad reviews on how monitoring is outsourced to local companies with no oversight or control.
Noticed a few bad reviews on how monitoring is outsourced to local companies with no oversight or control.
I've had Simplisafe for five years now, and have had only good experiences. The monitoring is professional and fast responding. Have had 2 false alarms in those 5 years (entirely my fault) and the police were sent out promptly both times. Had one burning food incident that set off the fire alarm, and they responded quickly to that as well with a call. When I couldn't get the alarm to stop going off in that fire incident, the monitoring person was able to give me accurate and fast instructions (as if they knew exactly what they were doing) on how to temporarily disable my system so it'd stop calling the monitoring until I got the smoke aired out.
Anyway, I've had no problems with the monitoring at all.
The system itself works well. Not sure what to say about it... all the sensors seem to sense the things they are supposed to sense. The various sensors do create a sort of mesh network between themselves, so if you have a larger house it is important to have a sensors placed in a way where they can communicate down the line to the base station.
Only other comment is that the base station by-default uses T-Mobile, so you have to have a good T-Mobile signal at your location. They can send you a part that changes the cell company to a different one, and it's pretty easy to swap out, but be prepared for that if you don't have good T-Mobile service in your area. It also can use a hardline CAT cable or wifi for a connection, but you want the cell connection to work as well because it isn't good to have security only when the power and internet are functioning.
Noticed a few bad reviews on how monitoring is outsourced to local companies with no oversight or control.
The biggest plus for them is they have a lot of reasonably priced sensors for everything from the basic door/window, motion and fire, to water and freeze sensors.
The downsides are that basic monitoring doesn't name sensors so harder to determine what's going on. There are some questionable decisions from a security standpoint regarding their key fobs too.
My bigger complaint is their software support is pathetic. The app doesn't support Geo fencing or customized notifications, their Alexa/Google support is basic at best, and they offer no sort of support for any sort of smart home integration, and despite lots of requests for it none of these have been added or addressed in years, despite the fact that my old "professional" system did all of this years ago.