754 Messages
Attempted Burglary Last Night and Video Doorbell Pro Caught None Of It
I had a terrible experience with SS customer service last night and I went to bed before making a post about that so that I would be reasonably constructive and not just rant-y. Unfortunately I woke up to video footage of someone trying to break into my car in my driveway and I'm NOT going to sleep on this one and I AM going to get rant-y so here goes.
Your cameras are trash, Simplisafe. I had no idea this was the case until I bought a camera from another vendor to check them but here we go, AGAIN, with another post of this type. This morning at 3:30AM the Wyze Cam v3 (a $36 camera with more features than any of your cameras, by the way) that is inside my house pressed against a window detected a person:
- Walk up my street to my house
- Walk into my driveway and try to gain access to my vehicle
- Walk to the end of my driveway and hang out for half a minute
- Walk down and across the street to my neighbors house and try to gain access to their vehicle
I can see all of this in 3 distinct video clips of 45ish seconds each that have nice time stamps embedded in them in color night vision. What's more, because they have local storage and can record continuously, I was able to check a few minutes before and after the clips to make sure there wasn't anything else that I needed to view / download.
What did my Video Doorbell Pro (which is outside and not behind a window, closer to the driveway by a sold 15 feet and less than 15 feet from my car door and which cost me $169) detect? Not a damned thing. Nothing. Not a single thing on the timeline from any of that activity. It caught a car go by half an hour later when it turned and the headlights flashed the camera but that's it.
I hate that I spent money on 3x SimpliCams ($100 each), 1x Outdoor Camera ($170) and 1x Video Doorbell Pro ($170) and all of them are eclipsed in features, functionality and usefulness by a $36 camera. It is beyond frustrating to know that I wasted that money on something I want to be able to depend on when I need to talk to the police and I just can't. I haven't taken your cameras down because hey, who knows, they might work one day and did I mention I have already replaced them all with cameras that cost $36 each?
I don't know how you can make this better for me but I'm open to ideas. How about it Davey, will SimpliSafe refund my money on these? Should I attempt a warranty return because they're clearly broken and don't work? What's my move here? If you'd like to see the video footage caught by your competitors cameras then shoot me a note and I'll forward them along and you can check them against what's in your timeline which won't take long because, again, that would be nothing.
It's also worth noting that all of this is especially irritating because the rest of your system seems fine to me. I say 'seems' because I haven't done head to head testing of your smoke and CO detectors or your water detectors with other vendors but I'll be real honest, I'm thinking about it. If I didn't have $1000+ in hardware on your system I'd already be shopping around. At this point a low level of anxiety / suspicion has definitely set in though and it feels like a matter of time before I replace the rest of your system as well when I find something that works better.
Note: If you're another customer reading this and you want to reply with something to the effect of, "My cameras work perfectly, all the time!" (even though you haven't done any real head to head testing with other cameras) then just don't. It's not helpful to me or to you and SS doesn't need you to stick up for them. In fact, it'll just make me angrier because it reminds me that someone out there might have received working cameras in exchange for their money when they won the quality control lottery. (Which, judging by posts, seems to be about the same odds as the actual lottery.)
Edit: And because I forgot to include this in my original post, here are the settings for my video doorbell pro:
Motion Events: On
Motion Notifications: On
Sensitivity: High (Day and Night)
Motion Type: All Motion
Activity zones are enabled for both of the left most columns but my car is visible in the 2nd/3rd columns from the right which are completely enabled. I literally can't make the camera more sensitive than it is unless there's a konami code I need.
Your cameras are trash, Simplisafe. I had no idea this was the case until I bought a camera from another vendor to check them but here we go, AGAIN, with another post of this type. This morning at 3:30AM the Wyze Cam v3 (a $36 camera with more features than any of your cameras, by the way) that is inside my house pressed against a window detected a person:
- Walk up my street to my house
- Walk into my driveway and try to gain access to my vehicle
- Walk to the end of my driveway and hang out for half a minute
- Walk down and across the street to my neighbors house and try to gain access to their vehicle
I can see all of this in 3 distinct video clips of 45ish seconds each that have nice time stamps embedded in them in color night vision. What's more, because they have local storage and can record continuously, I was able to check a few minutes before and after the clips to make sure there wasn't anything else that I needed to view / download.
What did my Video Doorbell Pro (which is outside and not behind a window, closer to the driveway by a sold 15 feet and less than 15 feet from my car door and which cost me $169) detect? Not a damned thing. Nothing. Not a single thing on the timeline from any of that activity. It caught a car go by half an hour later when it turned and the headlights flashed the camera but that's it.
I hate that I spent money on 3x SimpliCams ($100 each), 1x Outdoor Camera ($170) and 1x Video Doorbell Pro ($170) and all of them are eclipsed in features, functionality and usefulness by a $36 camera. It is beyond frustrating to know that I wasted that money on something I want to be able to depend on when I need to talk to the police and I just can't. I haven't taken your cameras down because hey, who knows, they might work one day and did I mention I have already replaced them all with cameras that cost $36 each?
I don't know how you can make this better for me but I'm open to ideas. How about it Davey, will SimpliSafe refund my money on these? Should I attempt a warranty return because they're clearly broken and don't work? What's my move here? If you'd like to see the video footage caught by your competitors cameras then shoot me a note and I'll forward them along and you can check them against what's in your timeline which won't take long because, again, that would be nothing.
It's also worth noting that all of this is especially irritating because the rest of your system seems fine to me. I say 'seems' because I haven't done head to head testing of your smoke and CO detectors or your water detectors with other vendors but I'll be real honest, I'm thinking about it. If I didn't have $1000+ in hardware on your system I'd already be shopping around. At this point a low level of anxiety / suspicion has definitely set in though and it feels like a matter of time before I replace the rest of your system as well when I find something that works better.
Note: If you're another customer reading this and you want to reply with something to the effect of, "My cameras work perfectly, all the time!" (even though you haven't done any real head to head testing with other cameras) then just don't. It's not helpful to me or to you and SS doesn't need you to stick up for them. In fact, it'll just make me angrier because it reminds me that someone out there might have received working cameras in exchange for their money when they won the quality control lottery. (Which, judging by posts, seems to be about the same odds as the actual lottery.)
Edit: And because I forgot to include this in my original post, here are the settings for my video doorbell pro:
Motion Events: On
Motion Notifications: On
Sensitivity: High (Day and Night)
Motion Type: All Motion
Activity zones are enabled for both of the left most columns but my car is visible in the 2nd/3rd columns from the right which are completely enabled. I literally can't make the camera more sensitive than it is unless there's a konami code I need.
davey_d
Community Admin
•
5.7K Messages
3 years ago
This is absolutely not the experience that we want you to have, and we sincerely apologize. We want you to know that we're listening, and we're having a senior tech reach out, and work with our engineers to take care of you. Keep an ear out!
- Davey D.
Community Development Manager
SimpliSafe Home Security
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worthing
754 Messages
3 years ago
Thanks!
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murphmr
25 Messages
3 years ago
I am right there with you - I have Eufy cameras for about 1.5 years that I use outside because I was tired of waiting for Simplisafe to release an outdoor camera.
So I have the additional problem that the video doorbell camera will detect something but it will not actually save the recording. So it is online but because of bandwidth issues (apparently) it will not save the video. All three of indoor ss cameras will record and save the video but not the doorbell. There is a wireless access point (mesh network) less than 10 feet away from the camera so it is not a signal strength issue. SS has replaced the doorbell and it was better for a little while but now it is back to the same bad behavior again.
SS Support said that my upload speeds are supposedly the issue but I consistently have 13-24Mbps upload.
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CACarpenter
41 Messages
3 years ago
Plus...you have to have the Interactive (camera) Plan....even if you don't need it.....or your are left out in the cold for Amazon (Alexa) comparability
What a joke !!!
You already spent hundreds of $$$...but hey, give us more $$$
Despicable !
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etteluap
2 Messages
10 months ago
excellent commentary - rant-y works for me when it's well deserved. You just saved me from buying the doorbell.
I have the "system" but I would consider it first level security. Yes I have an outdoor camera but as far as I can tell it only records AFTER the front door has been compromised and the intruder is in the house. So, as a back up I have a gun now.
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