Soldato
- Joined
- 27 Aug 2005
- Posts
- 3,708
Currently looking at house alarms and they have some big discounts on at Simplisafe so looking to potentially buy one as house alarm. What are your opinions on the alarm?
I did a custom order, I've got the following:
- base station
- motion sensors
- door/window sensors
- glass break sensor
- smoke alarm
- panic button
- key fob
- extra siren
- camera
Overall not too bad, the extra siren is a must. I originally bought it without, and when testing the base station wasn't really loud enough for an alarm. Wasn't too happy about that, so complained and simplisafe allowed me to order one with the same 40% discount I had on my original offer.
The system looks good, sleak/modern design for the alarm panel. The sensors were very easy to install as well, and no wireless/connection problems across the house. It integrates well with Google assistant, and they've got a somewhat partial API available that I've got integrated into Home Assistant. When you arm the alarm, it'll tell you if there's any contact sensors open.
A few downsides; they claim the motion sensors work well with pets - they don't really. We've got a small dog and he kept tripping the sensor, so had to remove the motion sensor from his bedroom (kitchen).
The camera doesn't have the best quality, but does work quite well in the dark. I personally wouldn't buy the camera for the sake of buying one - we had ours chucked in free with the bundle.
The smoke alarm can also be a bit sensitive, I've had it go off a few times when cooking, followed up with a phone call by the monitoring team. Although not really an issue, at least you're confirming it works!
I would also say, if you get a good discount code (40-50%) then buy all the sensors/extras that you need from the original order, as the discount codes on just accessories are rare and I've only seen 25% off.
It is one system that you kind of do need to pay for the professional monitoring to get the best use out of it. Based on that I would also get the smoke/water/freeze (if you lived somewhere that it gets very cold) sensors as they'll monitor those for you as well.
I.e. If you had a fire start in the kitchen whilst you weren't there, they'd get notified, do a visual confirmation with the camera and then call the fire brigade.
Let me know if anything else you want to know. Also let me know if you're planning on placing an order as I think there's a referral code that'll get you some extra discount / or a giftcard.
Would you use the key fobs? It's handy i suppose if you have a side/rear entry that won't have a keypad, ours very rarely gets used - only for guests who don't frequently visit. The alarm station allows you to set up "profiles" so you can set your own pin (saves everyone having to remember a pin, so you can set it to something personal to them) - This also helps identify who has come home.
If you don't think you'd use a key fob, see if you can swap it out for another component.
The extra siren went in the hallway.
Dahua DMSS does both the NVR and security.
You didn’t get my trust message?Nothing so far as far as I can tell.
No, still nothing. Maybe better luck next year!