I'm mostly looking at Simply Safe and RING's systems.

When I owned my own home, I had ADT intalled during construction and was pleased with them.

However, now that I'm back renting, I'm curious about what the forum has to say about Simply Safe and RING. Currently, I'm leaning toward RING. I like their video door bell and spot light products. I've yet to read over the reviews of each system though.

What's your take on this subject?

Question:
Which home security system would you recommend?

Choices:
RING
Simply Safe
Other, ( please explain )

 

The SimpliSafe system has been around a bit longer and has a track record. To the best of my knowledge, the RING system, at least as far as the complete home security system, is not yet out and from the ads I've looked at, it seems a little pricier than SimpliSafe when compared feature-to-feature. I really like the RING floodlight concept though and have been looking very closely at them.

Depending on your needs, it wouldn't be uncalled for to do both.

Simply safe is a modern riff on the traditional alarm system. Ring is a video system with some alarm features. Ring is also visible, so a potential burglar can see it and avoid entry where the ring stuff covers. In that case having a more traditional type alarm that would cover everything would pick that up.

quote:

Originally posted by BBMW:
Depending on your needs, it wouldn't be uncalled for to do both.

Simply safe is a modern riff on the traditional alarm system. Ring is a video system with some alarm features. Ring is also visible, so a potential burglar can see it and avoid entry where the ring stuff covers. In that case having a more traditional type alarm that would cover everything would pick that up.

Exactly what he said.

I have a SimpliSafe alarm system w/o any visible indication from the outside and a Ring video doorbell, to which I'm considering adding one of their cameras (also exterior).

I like both services for what they do very much.

-Rob

I had a Simply Safe system for a year or two and while it worked ok, its very basic. There are more modern, streamlined systems out there. I also got tired of waiting for them bring out cameras. All that said, I’m growing VERY tired of the company that monitors our system (Moni). They’re a bunch of morons.

What other brands/systems should I look at that are roughly comparable to Simply Safe?

We've had Simplisafe for about 3 years now and while it's OK I've been pretty unhappy with system quirks, and a couple false alarms.

Their tech support isn't very helpful at trouble shooting and I'm looking at different options and will likely replace it once I find something different to try.

LiveWatch.

I had my system installed by a local company that would do a cash for equipment no contract deal. I pay less a month, and avoided the $100 install fee. Getting a "free" system with contract basically evened out within $100 or so. Monitoring is by Monitronics (no issues with them), and the equipment is all Interlogic/GE Simon through an Alarm.com front end. I've added some other stuff to it myself (Thermostat, various smart switches for lights, still image camera) via Z-wave.

Knowing what I do now, I would go with Live Watch and do the installation myself. Front Point is another one that is similar.

Simply Safe has kind of cheap and big sensors running on bigger batteries, instead of the smaller sensors on coin batteries.

I highly recommend a system with professional level equipment, but install and program yourself. The Alarm.com front end is pretty good too.

In any case, you want 24-hour monitoring over a cellular link that cannot be disabled after an alarm has triggered. This means that when a door or window is breached or motion sensor triggered, the system immediately notifies the monitoring service. Then if you don't disarm within the time limit (30 seconds usually) they call the police. Destroying the control panel with a hammer or whatever will not stop the call.

Anything dependent on WiFi or internet or anything wired to the outside world, or dependent on power that is not battery backed up is a no-go. Z-wave allows home automation that is also independent of your internet or WiFi connection.

I have not used RING, but I do have SimpliSafe. Super easy to install, I customized my system for what I needed, and everything’s works perfectly. I pay a little extra monthly to get the app and texts. Every time it is turned on or off I get a text, which I like.