Simplisafe Review: Is Simplisafe Worth It

I decided to write this Simplisafe Review because it has now been six years since our family started using the Simplisafe system. That is enough time to let people know if Simplisafe is worth it or not, and to answer the question, “Does Simplisafe work?”

Long answer short? Yes, and yes.

simplisafe review

Simplisafe review

We’d read Simplisafe reviews in magazines and heard the company mentioned on radio programs before we ever signed up for the service. In fact, we weren’t sure Simplisafe was worth it. I mean, we had our doubts.

First, how could an affordable home security system actually be affordable? Also, two, how could it actually work by alerting the police if there was a problem at your home?

A few years ago we found ourselves forced into a situation where we had to find out if Simplisafe was worth it. Here’s what happened.

Why we bought a Simplisafe system

We’d moved our younger daughter into her first off-campus house at college. Let’s just say though the house itself was quite nice, the area where it was located wasn’t.

We weren’t thrilled about our daughter and her five housemates living there. Installing a home security system would help us sleep easy at night. (Why we were the only parents who seemed to care about this is fodder for another blog post.)

Simplisafe vs ADT

The day we moved her in, we noticed that the home already came with an ADT touchpad and window and door sensors installed. Awesome, we thought, and called to activate it.

However, about five minutes into the call we realized that we had to sign a two-year contract with ADT. There was no month-to-month option.

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We tried in vain to explain that our daughter would be living there for only 12 months. Didn’t matter. ADT wouldn’t work with us.

Where to buy Simplisafe

We weren’t comfortable leaving without some kind of alarm system. We logged onto our phones and read those Simplisafe reviews again.

We wanted to order her a kit and have it shipped to her home, one option. However, we didn’t want to leave without some kind of security system in place.

Simplisafe at Costco

Luckily, you can buy Simplisafe in stores. This includes Best Buy, Sam’s Club and Costco.

We’re Costco members so while my husband helped our daughter unpack, I ran to Costco to get the kit. However, like I said, you can buy a Simplisafe system online as well.

How to install Simplisafe

Even if we’d had the Simplisafe kit sent to her home, our daughter could have installed the Simplisafe herself. You see, Simplisafe is a self-installed, DIY home security system. You don’t need any special hacks to set it up and get it working.

The Simplisafe base station–which looks just like an Amazon Alexa– works with your home’s WIFI. Also, it connects with the police and fire departments in an emergency. (It’s your responsibility to load that information into your Simplisafe account.)

simplisafe base station

No special hardware or tools required

If you’re adept at working with Command strips, then you can install the Simplisafe sensors on doors and windows plus the motion sensors inside. There are no wires–save for plugging in the base and camera–and you don’t need a drill or anything.

Simplisafe also has an app you can download. So, you can arm your system from afar or disarm it before getting out of your car if you want to get in the door quickly.

FYI, you can use a Simplisafe security system in a home, apartment or business.

Simplisafe review for an apartment

The Simplisafe worked out perfectly for our younger daughter. Unfortunately, we ended up needing a Simplisafe for our older daughter sooner than we realized. That was because her apartment was broken into and her valuables stolen. 

Since her apartment hadn’t come with a security system, we ordered a Simplisafe for her. Even though she was living 1,000 miles away, she was able to log onto the Simplisafe website, watch an installation video and get the system set up by herself.

Like her sister she loaded the local police and fire department information into the app, just in case. Thankfully, that just in case never happened before she left that apartment.

We’ll never know if anyone every tried to break into her apartment another time. However, this is what we do know: since installing the Simplisafe, she was never robbed again.

Taking Simplisafe with you

In fact, both daughters have since moved to new apartments. And both daughters took their Simplisafe with them. That’s one of the reasons you’ll find that this is a positive Simplisafe review.

There are so many benefits to a Simplisafe system. One, you pay for it once. Two, the equipment is yours to keep. And three, you can take it with you and set it up in a new location when you move.

Yes, you still must pay for Simplisafe live monitoring but you would be paying a monthly fee with any other alarm company anyway. But you’re not paying for new equipment, you’re not paying for an install and you don’t have to wait around for an employee to show up and activate your system.

simplisafe review components

When we moved to a new home in 2018, we purchased a Simplisafe, too. If that isn’t a positive review–that our family would have three Simplisafe accounts–I don’t know how much more I could recommend it. It’s why SimpliSafe appears in my list of favorite products and brands. 

Simplisafe review of live monitoring

So, do you need monitoring with the Simplisafe system? Yes.

I would not recommend setting up Simplisafe without monitoring. Oh and the monitoring works.

Back to our younger daughter and her college housemates. They had a terrible habit of not disarming the Simplisafe when they would come home.

Because our daughter was the primary on the Simplisafe, the company would call her to see if they should send the police. Sometimes our daughter would miss those monitoring calls and they would call us, her parents. So Simplisafe was really on the ball.

Simplisafe will send the police

Important Simplisafe hack: answer the call when they check in. Because if you don’t answer, they will send the police.

Our younger daughter learned the hard way what happens if the police respond too many times to false alarms. Literally a false alarm from Simplisafe.

Well, you get a very expensive ticket from the city for wasting their time. That was a hard lesson for her to learn.

Features you may like

The Simplisafe system is smart. If we have it on and our dogs are walking around, the motion sensors “know” not to react. In fact, Simplisafe has designed the sensors to respond to humans, not four-legged residents of your home.

Another smart part of the system: when you design alarm codes to disarm it on the keypad, you can create multiples codes. For example, you can make one for your babysitter, another one for your dog walker and a third one that would automatically send an alert to the police.

That is, if someone follows you into the house and has commanded you to disarm the alarm, you can punch in your secret code. This will have the Simplisafe saying “Alarm off” in is robotic voice like it does normally when you come home. But get this: secretly it will dispatch the police department. Because you’ve just tripped the emergency alarm yet the person who is threatening you has no idea this has happened.

simplisafe keypad

In addition to monitoring your house for break-ins, you can also install a Simplisafe water sensor, which will monitor for floods or water damage. This would have been helpful to have in our house when the sump pump backed up and our basement started to flood. Because we didn’t have a water sensor installed, we only discovered the flood when I went downstairs and “splashed” onto the bottom step.

Simplisafe subscription plans

Our Simplisafe subscription plan costs just under $21 a month. This includes monitoring for open doors, open windows and the motion sensors that we’ve installed throughout the house.

Here’s the official pricing information from the Simplisafe website:

Professional Monitoring starts at just $14.99 per month. We offer free shipping for orders that include a new system. SimpliSafe’s Interactive Monitoring service, which gives you great features such as remote management, SMS/email notifications, camera recording and storage, and secret alerts, is $24.99 per month.

If you have any feedback on this Simplisafe review, let me know by posting a comment below.

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