As a traveller, it’s great having peace of mind that my home is secure while I’m away. Simplisafe’s features make it easy to monitor my home, even when I’m far away.
Here is my one year review of the pros and cons of the Simplisafe Essentials package.
Is Simplisafe easy to self install around the home?
For the most part, yes Simplisafe is easy to install.
The essentials package includes 3 door sensors, 1 indoor camera, 1 base station, 1 motion sensor and 1 keypad.
I was pleased there was no drilling involved and could be installed by someone allergic to DIY!
The sensors come in two parts, one sticks to the frame and the other sticks to a door or window. When the door or window opens, the sensors lose connection of each other, prompting the base station to chime, like some smaller shops do (you can turn this chime off if you like).
We have windows with bevelled frames so the sensors don’t sit flat and flush as you can see. A couple of them fell off as the sticky pads were not sticky enough, so I replaced them command strips and have had no trouble since the change.
The base station acts as a speaker, alerting you when the alarm has been switched on and off, as well as sounds the alarm. The base station has a rechargeable battery in it, so even if you experience a power outage an alarm would still set off.
So what happens when the alarm is set off?
Well I found that out via an embarrassing incident…
I was getting ready to leave the house and set Simplisafe to ‘home’, but I still had the door closed.
I opened the door, locked it and went to my car. I then received an alert on the Simplisafe app. I then received a phone call from someone at Simplisafe to confirm everything was okay.
Simplisafe app
I love the app. You can set ‘home’, ‘away’ or off in the app which is helpful if you’re already in bed or have left home and forgot to set the alarm. There’s also a live webcam feed too which has a night vision mode and mic (great for spying on your cat also).
You can also set guest pins too which has been useful (we have one our cat sitter for example).
How does Simplisafe work with pets?
The room sensor sits in a top corner of a room. If you turn it upside down, it raises its sensor field. This means it can detect a human, but not a cat jumping on a sofa for example.
Simplisafe problems
The essentials package cost £323.94, so not cheap.
We were slightly disappointed the monthly fee was raised by a huge £5 a month during a rise in the cost of living, meaning our monthly subscription is £25 a month.
There was also a problem when trying to activate our subscription via the app (it would only accept zip codes, not UK postcodes) – hopefully this has been addressed. We had to phone customer support who sorted the problem quickly at least.
Simplisafe discount code
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