Alarm.com 4+

Excellent for diy’ers

I had a new home built and the builder put in a Qolsys iq panel 2 plus with a sky doorbell, zwave thermostat and garage door controller, a zwave door lock, and a zwave switch controlling the carriage lights. When we moved in a high pressure sales guy came in from the contracted security company to “set up” the system. After trying to wow us with the fact you could control the front door, garage, doorbell, thermostat and light he tried to lock us in with a $50/mo. 3 yr alarm monitoring contract. We were threatened with the fact that without paying for their expensive service we couldn’t add cameras, alarm door sensors, or even save doorbell videos, etc. Basically the system would be unfinished. I like to have full control with no monitoring. I later did a little research and found Surety. Surety hosts the ability to do exactly what I wanted, take full control of the system I paid for. I tried to sign up and couldn’t at first because my system was already registered to “that” security company. Surety’s site guided me with what to do, I released the imei from the previous security company and signed up with Surety. Surety’s app has been amazing. I’ve set up my system at my pace and only pay for what I’m using. The price for the same service is less than half of the high pressure sales company, I have full control, and I can add what I want when I want. I highly recommend. The app works perfectly.

Developer Response ,

Thank you so much for taking the time to review our app, and we're sorry to hear about the experience you had. We're glad you found one of our partners that made you feel comfortable! If you have any questions or anything we can help with, feel free to email us at Questions@Alarm.com with "iOS App Review" and we'll be in touch!

Overall Good Solid App

This is a good, solid app overall providing the basic functionality to control and manage a security system. For me the bonus is integration with Lutron Caseta to turn lights on when an alarm event occurs. I do have (2) requests: 1. Would be nice to provide a hide option for the default scenes provided (Home, Sleep, Wake) as they cannot be deleted. The only scenes I want shown are Arm and two which I defined named Stay and Disarm. The others are clutter and never used. Would like to hide or delete. 2. When arming to STAY, options are presented for No Entry and Night Arm. My DSC Neo 2064 system is configured with several motion sensors as Night Mode. When arming to STAY with both these options selected only the Night Arm option is honored. That is, No Entry is ignored. I can accomplish this at a keypad by entering [* 9] so the system arms to STAY with No Entry and once armed enter [* 1] to Night Arm (2 step process). It should be noted if choosing a single option to arm with STAY it works fine. That is, just No Entry or just Night Arm but not both. Either fix this or gray one option out if the other is selected (mutually exclusive).

Can only use when connected to home WiFi

I for some reason have to have my husband arm our house if I leave my driveway before doing so. Before I leave I sit in the driveway to set it which can be somewhat taxing if I’m running late or my baby is not happy to be in the car and always settles once the vehicle is moving. There was a period where the app wasn’t following any of my arming commands via my Apple Watch nor my iPhone, but now both work as long as I’m in the driveway. My husband has set it wherever though. I think I emailed customer support. I also have tried logging out and back in and deleting the app and re downloading but nothing has worked. When I did try to find help about this issue via the app and the site I could not find any information on how to fix it. It would be outrageously convenient to be able to arm it with my watch, but I’ll settle for some guidance on whether it only works via WiFi, one’s home network, or if I need to adjust another setting or account. This app is extremely efficient, however, which is very comforting having a baby, and yesterday the battery was low and it promptly informed me via text message and my husband, it did send me a whopping 15 texts which I didn’t think was necessary especially because I was in the home the entire time, but nonetheless I’d rather it send that many than none. So thanks for your service, a couple tweeks, broader access to troubleshooting, and I’d easily give it a 5 star rating.

Developer Response ,

Thank you for reaching out to us, Autumn, we can help! It sounds like the setting that allows the app to use cellular data has been toggled off somehow. This is easy to find though. Go to your phone settings, then scroll down until you find Alarm.com and select it. You should see a toggle for Cellular Data which needs to be toggled to the right for it to be active. If you email our team they can provide some details on why you received so many low battery messages along with tips for anything else you're curious about. Please contact us at Questions@Alarm.com, and if you include "iOS App Review" in the subject line, our support team will be able to prioritize your message.