Bug - sensor reporting as online when the battery is out

Refreshing the app itself may be the problem. A category named "Devices" probably needs to be updated to make the system recognize the change immediately (it will eventually check on its own, but the wait can be lengthy).

Again, it is my best guess as to why the system fails to log the changes instantly.

Also, were you manually accessing the "pull down to check system status" in the app? The action will cause the system to connect to the Base Station and its sensors and check system errors in real-time. Otherwise, you have to wait until it checks in automatically. It will eventually alert you to the sensor(s) being offline, but in the second scenario, it will take time.

Hi nprez83,

Shiherlis is correct. Your system checks in with the app on the regular basis, but if you want immediate updates on the status of the system and components, you'll want to refresh by pulling down on the Dashboard.

That is, except for when the sensors are actually triggered, or when the system is armed or disarmed. Those signals are sent immediately.

- Johnny M.
SimpliSafe Home Security

Thank you Shiherlis and Johnny M. You are correct, as I mentioned above I refreshed the app several times by pulling down on the dashboard and the system kept indicating it was "testing sensors" but would always come back without any issues. I do think that the system would have presumably been designed to detect that, hence refreshing the app should indeed result in some kind of warning, but it's not doing that, which is why I think this is actually a bug that needs to be fixed as there's no way this is the way the system was designed to operate.

I also do agree with Shiherlis btw, that having to manually refresh the app in order to see sensor status it's already a problem, as ideally the app would refresh in the background with some regularity and catch sensor errors on its own thus notifying me. This is the way the Cove system works btw, as soon as you tamper with a sensor you immediately get a push notification and an SMS if you've set it up.

It's also worth noting that Cove sensors (motion and non-motion) all have a tamper switch inside that's tripped the moment you open it, triggering an immediate notification. SS sensors do not have a tamper switch, which was surprising to me.

In a live situation, assuming that you have your system armed (in Home or Away), any Entry Sensor would trigger anyway. In Off mode, everything is just off. So having some sort of tamper-proofing for when you don't even want your system to be active would just be another way to generate false alarms.

If you want sensors to trigger right away, ignoring the countdown, you can also set each one to "Instant Trigger". It's a good idea to do that for any door or window that you don't open a lot.

As for the original question - we should also mention that the sensors only check in once in every while. When you refresh on the app, that pulls the latest information that the Base Station has from the last time that each sensor has checked in. So it wouldn't necessarily be an instant update.

- Johnny M.
SimpliSafe Home Security