abode 4+

The latest update from the end of May (5.0) broke the location services that were working perfectly fine up until the latest update. Even though it lists both my wife and I as inside, it states that our location services are off and never triggers Auto-Away. I’ve uninstalled, turned location services off and back on in the app and on both phones to no avail.

I was enjoying the system and app until this latest update. Please fix this asap as it’s been over a week and this is a big feature that a lot of people use. It’s hard to believe that it made it through Beta testing without being noticed. I’ll change my review once this has been fixed.

Edit: They have fixed the location services. The new app is still wonky from time-to-time but is on its way to being a really nice, smooth and functional app. The service itself is still really nice and I’d recommend it over most others on the market.

I purchased an abode system to secure my home a few months back and installed it directly after. I immediately had issues. 1 of 3 Abode Cams I ordered didn’t work right out of the box. 1 more stopped working within 24 Hours. They sent me two more. Again, 1 didn’t work at all, the other worked for a week, and then again, failed. While I was a paying subscriber for their monitoring, my Abobe system stopped responding to my door sensors at all. I set the alarm, opened the door, and nothing. No notifications. No alarm triggered. I have no idea how long it wasn’t working. Each time I’ve interacted with abode support, they were next to no support. The features that are pictured in the Self Monitoring sections of their website don’t accurately reflect the product they deliver either. They show the user receiving a detailed notification about events happening in their system; however, that isn’t the case. With the self monitoring, users only get a generic message stating that an event occurred with no further detail. The notifications for “self monitoring” do not help someone monitor their home using an expensive security system. They just serve as another notification on the phone. Im not sure how this company hasn’t been hit with a massive class action lawsuit on behalf of its customers, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.

I used to be incredibly happy with this app and system, and then after I owned it for probably at least a year they made a feature that used to be included on the free plan, only available by paying a monthly subscription. The feature was the ability to see which specific device triggered the alarm. I just started to notice that it would tell me the alarm was triggered, but would not tell me which device. When I finally reached out to them, they said that to stay in business as a company they had to change features and pricing options and that I would have to pay for the subscription to gain access again to a feature that I previously had since the time I purchased the system.

obviously, I paid a bit of money for the hardware, so to suddenly lose a feature that is a pretty core part of the functionality and be told I have to pay more and I’m going to get access to it is pretty shady business practice in my opinion. They gave me a discount for the subscription for the first year, but that does not solve the problem.