What Happens During An Alarm?
Updated
SimpliSafe’s® Professional Monitoring protects your home, building or property across many types of alarms. If an alarm is triggered from your system, you’ll be immediately notified through App Push Notifications.
In most instances, you will also receive a phone call from our monitoring centre following these notifications. There are two exceptions:
If you cancel by Keypad, Key Fob, App (OFF) within the false alarm grace period.
If you request help by pressing a silent Panic Button, or entering your “Duress Pin” when disarming your system.
The types of alarms that can occur are divided into three categories:
Burglary (Entry, Motion, Glassbreak, Panic Button, Duress)
Life Safety (Fire)
Environmental (Water and Temperature Alerts)
Burglary (Entry, Motion, Glassbreak, Panic Button, Duress)
Depending on your notification settings, when a burglary sensor is triggered (Entry, Motion, Glassbreak, or a Panic Button), our Monitoring Centre is informed immediately. You’ll also be immediately notified through App Push Notifications.
If you do not open your app via Push Notification and disarm your system, disarm from your keypad, the monitoring service will attempt to reach you and/or other Primary Contacts to inform you of the alarm and determine whether the police should be dispatched.
The Monitoring Specialist will ask for your Safe Word and you must provide the correct Safe Word to cancel an alarm. If you give an incorrect Safe Word or can’t remember it, our specialists will request dispatch to ensure your safety. You won't be told you got it wrong to protect anyone who may be under duress.
If you and/or other primary contacts cannot be reached, the monitoring centre will request dispatch. You do not need your Safe Word to request dispatch.
What happens if I provide the wrong Safe Word?
If you give an incorrect Safe Word or can’t remember it, our specialists must request emergency dispatch to ensure your safety. You won't be told you got it wrong to protect anyone who may be under duress.
Life Safety (Smoke)
When a Smoke Detector is triggered, the Monitoring Centre will only contact the first Primary Contact as time could be critical. It is important to make sure the first Primary Contact is someone who is more likely to answer their phone quickly. If we are not able to get ahold of your first Primary Contact, we will request dispatch of emergency services to the monitored location.
At times, heavy dust, strong paint fumes, or construction debris can cause false smoke alarms. You can request that our monitoring specialist place your smoke alarms on a "temporary disregard" for up to three days to avoid the risk of repeat calls and/or false dispatches.
Disarming your system via Keypad or Key Fob does not cancel emergency response. A Safe Word is not required to cancel dispatch for a smoke alarm, you just need to pick up the phone and tell the Monitoring Centre it is a false alarm.
During a Smoke alarm the smoke alarm device itself will produce a siren as well as the SimpliSafe® Base Station. You can silence your smoke alarm by pressing the button on the device. You can silence the SimpliSafe® Base Station alarm by entering your PIN to your keypad. If you silence your smoke alarm device and SimpliSafe® Base Station alarm in the previous steps but haven’t talked with our monitoring specialists to request cancellation your alarm will not be canceled.
Environmental (Water and Temperature)
When an Environmental sensor is triggered (Water and Temperature), Primary Contacts will receive a call to notify them of the alarm. If we are unable to reach a Primary Contact, we will also reach out to your Secondary Contacts. Environmental alarms do not result in dispatch regardless of whether you answer the phone or not.
If you cancel or disarm your system within the first minute or so of your environmental alarm we will not call any contacts as we count the cancellation as acknowledgement.