SimpliSafe Home Security App 4+

I’ve had all the major alarm companies for securing my home. They protected me from burglars, but no one protected me from their contracts. For usually $100 down; they will install a new system in your home. However, unless you’re an attorney and understand contract law and all that fine print, they still own that equipment, and it’s hard to get out of their contracts. Since I went with SimpliSafe, I had to purchase the system outright. The good thing was that I owned the system and you don’t even need to pay anyone if money gets tight. It’ll be a great noise maker to scare away the burglars. Yet, I always pay the monitoring and interactive fees to protect my home and to be able to turn my system on or off with my phone while I’m away from home. You know, sometimes you forget to turn the system on before you leave. No problem, just turn on my smart phone, hit my app and hit the on button, and it’s on. There are zero contracts as SimpliSafe does not use contracts. It’s just month to month and you can turn it off anytime you want. If you move, it’s your system and you just pull the detectors and control off the walls of your old home and tape them up at your new home. You can customize every detector to do different things. They really stand by their product. I hate all the other alarm systems, and I love SimpliSafe and won’t even consider leaving them.

I’m an Engineer, so I was a little concerned that it might be overly simplified in order to keep setup straight forward, when In fact, it’s just the opposite. The basic configuration allows for a very simple setup that will satisfy 95% of the users. For those that want to fiddle with it, you have the option to modify operational parameters on a sensor by sensor basis. For example, The non monitored wired alarm I also have had problems in my garage, forcing me to purchase a sophisticated PIR/radar detector. I installed the SimpliSafe motion detector in that location and set it up to only send alerts to me instead of alarming the system. That allows me to gain confidence with the location before taking it live. That’s just one example of the flexibility you’re afforded.

I’m also impressed with the monitoring speed. I moved one of my motion detectors, and wanted to verify it’s performance so I put the system in test mode. My phone rang almost instantly, couldn’t have been more than 2 seconds, and to my surprise it was the monitoring company informing me that they received a test signal. They stayed on the line explaining test mode options, and thanked me.

Customer support has always been easy to reach, and extremely helpful as I delved into some of the features that very few people will ever get into.

Read my success story below, but why only 4 stars? After each power outage both cameras would be inactive. My house watcher had to go and cycle power to get them to work again. This needs to be fixed. I had one camera viewing the central area inside, and another set on a window sill watching the three feet of snow in the yard!

Last year we bought a winter home in the desert. I was very concerned about leaving our northern home totally unprotected. I had a company install a system in another home seven years ago, and it worked perfectly, but it was all hard-wired and expensive. Searched this time for wireless systems, and found SimpliSafe. Having experience with the other system, I realized SimpliSafe checked all the important boxes like dual WiFi/cellular, safe from physical destruction, etc. Look at all those features carefully. And the sensors! Just what I needed to leave a house in very cold winter conditions. Water leak sensors for broken pipes. Temperature sensor to confirm the heating was working. Glass break sensors. Perfect! I installed it and had great peace of mind from 800 miles away for the seven months we were gone. Only one alarm, when a double-hung window popped open on it's own. They called me, the house was checked. Easily installed and set up. What a great system.

We are now moving to the desert. I can easily remove the system and take it with us!