Header banner
Revain logoHome Page
Lild Zimmerly photo
1 Level
1295 Review
53 Karma

Review on 🏠 SimpliSafe 9 Piece Wireless Home Security System with HD Camera - Get Optional 24/7 Professional Monitoring without a Contract - Compatible with Alexa and Google Assistant by Lild Zimmerly

Revainrating 5 out of 5

Easy to install and easy to use

I think a lot of these purchases are event driven, and mine certainly is. We have a house and barn on a 6 acre property. In the barn we park the tractor and store auxiliary tools and consumables. The shed was recently broken into and everything valuable was taken away. While this is deeply discouraging, it really only affects me. If the cabin has been ransacked and ransacked like the barn, I have several young children who will probably never want to go back/stay there again. I really consider myself competent when it comes to mechanical and electronic projects. I also consider myself a good researcher and analyst. I've found that there are many great alarm systems available today at very affordable prices, including professional DIY systems. Some professional systems now come with installation and setup videos - setup used to be the hard part of installing one of these videos. In my case, I was looking for a balance between price, ease of installation, and monitoring capabilities. Also, given the recent burglary, I wanted this project to be started and completed as quickly as possible as the cabin is just as vulnerable as the shed. The following statement may make you doubt my research, or at least my ability to read. Although I had planned to monitor the system, until I bought my SimpliSafe system, I didn't realize that you cannot remotely monitor the system with an app at all without one of the SimpliSafe plans and at the time of this writing in March 2021 you should be 25 dollars per month. I intend to conduct serious surveillance. If that weren't the case, I'd postpone monitoring the system for a while. Maybe it would be better if I was forced to make a plan sooner than I wanted to. In addition, SimpliSafe gives you 3 days of "practice use" after you activate your system. That means they don't contact local law enforcement if the system detects and issues an alarm. On the one hand I wanted the monitoring of my system to start right away, but I understand the logic of giving myself time to learn how to use the system without causing false alarms. Installation was really easy. Once you connect the base station and pull the battery latch on the keyboard, you're done. Installing one of the sensors is as easy as removing a paper battery tab, using the keyboard to tell the base station that you are installing a new device and naming it from the list once the base station announces that it has found a new device. The pre-installed double-sided adhesive tape simplifies the installation of the sensors. Our cabin has a lot of unfinished wood surfaces and I chose to mount the sensors that should have been on those surfaces with the screws provided. I haven't tried the included self-adhesive tape on bare wood, which may have worked perfectly. SimpliSafe tells you how far you can mount sensors like glass break sensors and motion sensors, but it was less clear how high they should be mounted given the space I was working in, or specifically broken glass, range of angles it could work with. For example, if you have windows on opposite sides of a room and there is no way to install a sensor in the middle, can it detect broken glass behind or to the side? SimpliSafe sensors are relatively inexpensive and therefore may require an additional sensor. or two is fine. The app is easy to set up and use, and is definitely geared towards the basic side rather than the overarching side. However, if the sensor turns off, the app will warn you about it. I'm not looking forward to changing batteries, would rather run cables through an older design. SimpliSafe has done a great job of making the system easy and straightforward to purchase, install and operate. They even emailed me telling me that the county where my cabin is located needs to fill out and submit a form and payment to allow for monitoring and specifically a response. They not only told me about it but also sent me the exact link to the form. They also informed me that no documents or fees are required to be a fire warden. The cabin can be a relatively harsh environment with high humidity in summer and relatively cold nights. I hope the sensors, base station and keyboard are reliable enough to last for years to come. If you're looking at any of these systems, read all you can to understand what you can and can't do with and without SimpliSafe's monitoring options. . See or read more about sensor placement and plan your own installation. I don't think you need to become an alarm expert, but every installation has its own problems. I have found a lot of useful information from a variety of sources on the internet to solve these problems. I have not interacted with SimpliSafe customer support at this time and cannot comment on this aspect of the product. Overall, I believe I made the right decision for my family and have nothing but positive things to say about installing and using my SimpliSafe. System.

Pros
  • Confident
Cons
  • Out of style