SimpliSafe9 Piece Wireless Home Security System w/HD Camera - Optional 24/7 Professional Monitoring - No Contract - Compatible with Alexa and Google Assistant

Guessing that a lot of these purchases are event driven and mine certainly is. We have a cabin and a barn on a 6 acre piece of property. The barn is where we park the tractor and store the supporting tools and supplies. The barn was recently broken into and everything of value was taken. While that is deeply disheartening, it really only affects me. If the cabin were to be robbed and ransacked like the barn was, I have several young children that would likely never want to go/stay there again.I do consider myself handy when it comes to mechanical and electronic projects. I also believe that I am a good researcher and analyst. I found that there are a lot of great alarm systems available at very affordable prices today including DIY professional systems. Several of the professional systems now have videos on installation and configuration—configuration used to be the tough part of installing one of those.In my case, I was looking for a balance of price, ease installation and options for monitoring. Given the recent break-in, I also wanted to get this project started and completed quickly as the cabin is just as vulnerable as the barn.This next statement may make you question my research, or at least, reading abilities. While I did plan to have the system monitored, I didn’t realize until after I purchased my SimpliSafe system that you can’t monitor the system remotely at all with the app without one of the SimpliSafe plans, and, at the time of this writing, March, 2021, you have to have the $25/mo. plan to do any serious monitoring. I would have putt off having the system monitored for a while if that were not the case. Perhaps it is better that I was forced into a plan earlier than I wanted. As an aside, SimpliSafe gives you 3 days of ‘practice’ use after you activate your system. This means they won’t contact local law enforcement if the system detects and alarm. On the one hand I wanted my system monitoring to start immediately but, do understand the logic of giving me time to learn to use the system without causing false alarms.The installation was truly easy. Once you plug in the basestation and pull the battery tab on the keypad, you are off to a great start. Installing any of the sensors is as easy as removing a paper battery tab, using the keypad to tell the basestation that you are installing a new device and naming it from a list once the basestation announces that a new device has been detected. The preinstalled double sided tape makes mounting the sensors easy. Our cabin has numerous unfinished roughhewn wood surfaces and I decided to mount sensors that had to be on those surfaces with the included screws. I didn’t try the included self-adhesive on the roughhewn wood which, may have worked perfectly.SimpliSafe tells you how far away you can mount sensors like the glass break and motion sensors but it was less clear about how high to mount them given the space I was working in or, for the glass break in particular, the angular range that it could work with. For example, if you have windows on opposite sides of a room with no option to mount the sensor in the middle, can it detect glass breaking behind it or beside it?SimpliSafe sensors are relatively inexpensive, and, as such, perhaps an extra sensor or two isn’t a bad thing.The App is easy to set up and use and definitely slanted to the easy side rather than the comprehensive side. That said, if a sensor were to drop off the app will alert you to that. I am not looking forward to changing batteries but would rather that to running wires through an older structure.SimpliSafe has done a great job making system purchase, installation and operation easy and straightforward. They even sent me an e-mail letting me know that the county where my cabin is located requires a form and payment to be completed and sent to authorize monitoring and, more specifically, response. Not only did they tell me about it, they sent me the exact link to the form. They also let me know that no paperwork or fee was required for the fire monitor.The cabin can be a relatively harsh environment with high humidity in the summer and relatively cold nights. I am hoping the sensors, base station and keypad are rugged enough to function for years to come.If you are looking at one of these systems, read all you can to understand what you can and can’t do with and without SimpliSafe’s monitoring options. Watch or read about sensor placement and plan your own install. I don’t think you have to become an alarm expert but each install has its own challenges. I found plenty of good information available from a lot of sources on the Internet to address those challenges. I have not interacted with SimpliSafe’s customer service at this point and can’t comment on that aspect of the product.Overall, I believe I made a good decision for my family and have only positive things to say about the installation and operation of my SimpliSafe system.

ABSOLUTELY AMAZING! Very simple to set up and everything works perfect!! You save so much by not having an alarm company setting up throughout your home/business. 10/10 recommend!

Super easy to set up and get up and running quickly. Works great - notifies me of power and internet outages when we’re not home. Easy to set and disarm from the keypad and the app.

I like this system. It was very easy to install and works pretty well. This is a good starter set but I've spent a few hundred on additional sensors including smoke, temperature, CO, and water. The cellular backup is a great feature, so if you lose WiFi or internet service the system can still communicate with the dispatch center. One negative is that if you do lose WiFi then it comes back a lot of times the base station will act like it has no WiFi until you go through and re select the network and enter the password in the app.The reaction the few times I've tripped the system was pretty instant. They call within about 10 seconds and if you or your alternate contacts don't answer they dispatch fast. Someone tripped one of my smoke detectors while sanding in my basement and I missed the call and the fire department was at our house in about 4 minutes. Gives me confidence in SimpliSafe and our fire department.You may need a permit for an alarm system like I did, but simplisafe tells you where to get it. I had to pay a one time fee of like $25 to my city to get the permit.I had one motion sensor in my kitchen get tripped twice while I wasn't home and I'm not sure of the cause. Simplisafe called me and I used the cameras to see nothing was going on so I had them cancel dispatch. I turned down the sensitivity of that motion detector and haven't had an issue since.I like that it tells you if one of your windows or doors is open when you arm the system. With the temp sensors I know the temperature in my house and basement in case the heat goes out or something. The water sensors have alerted me to a leak in the basement. I put a sensor on my safe so that it sends me a silent alert if it is opened while the system is disarmed. You can have any sensor notify you of motion or entry while the system is armed or disarmed.I got two panic buttons, one is set to dispatch police and one is set to dispatch medical. You can also set the panic button to silent, where it will not set off the sirens but will dispatch police without a confirmation call.You can set a distress PIN so that if someone is forcing you to enter the code you can enter the distress pin and it will disarm the system AND call for police.The base station has battery backup. I replaced the batteries in my base with Eneloop batteries for longer life when the power goes down. It can also notify you when you lose power so that you know when power goes out when you're not home.I use Eneloop batteries in the keypad and extra sirens and just replace them with freshly charged ones every 6 months or so. I'm sure they could last a lot longer.I screwed most of my sensors in place to make sure they didn't fall, but if you use the adhesive strips make sure to clean the surface with at least 70% isopropyl alcohol and allow it to dry thoroughly before sticking the sensor, and make sure to push the sensor to whatever you're stick it to for about 45 seconds to allow it to adhere properly.I got the keyfob but did not attach it to my keys. I would not want someone to have the keys to my house and a fob that disables the alarm without a code. So I don't really use the keyfob much and just keep it hidden.

Very easy to install. Brings me peace of mind knowing that my house is secured when I am not at home. I like that I can control all the alarms and camera through my app. If I forget to arm my house before I leave, I can do it from my app which is so convenient! Comes with door/window sensors, camera, and motion sensors.

Just set it up, and I was so pleased to find a set of directions that were accurate and understandable!! It was a breeze, except I had trouble with the indoor camera for some reason. But now set up and working well!!

By far the worst product experience I have ever had. Sure, setup is pretty easy but soon found out system works less time than it actually works and have to spend every day maintaining a series of different errors, such as devices that randomly stop working, 'keypad out of range' when it is literally less than a foot away from the base station, keypad offline. Once the app indicated the keypad was offline, but then it correctly triggered when I entered yet alarm sounded off for no reason then the very next day, the app indicated the keypad was on, but then did NOT trigger once I entered. Customer service is hard to get a hold of, inconsistent and love giving you the run-around asking you for things like the product and serial numbers that I am sure they already know, not very helpful. Said they would offer a free month of monitoring, but failed to follow through. Simply Sucks!!! Don't buy this product!