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fhgoalie's profile

Thursday, October 10th, 2024 5:02 PM

Base Station Functionality While on Battery Backup

Hey folks - I am new to SimpliSafe and trying to figure out how everything is supposed to work.

I unplugged my Base Station while it was disarmed the other day to see how long the battery backup would last. As soon as I unplugged it, I received a notification about the power failure and then mysteriously a disarm command was somehow sent by the SimpliSafe App, though not by me.

The good news is 24 hours passed and I did not receive any notifications about the battery backup being low or failing. I'm guessing that is good news, though it is possible that no such notification exists. Does anybody know?

While on battery backup, the secret alert functionality continued to work - I was notified when sensors were triggered. I also saw the Automatic Test Signal was successful. Fantastic - this is what I would expect.

Unfortunately, I was unable to refresh the Base Station settings while on backup power. This also meant that I was unable to arm the system, which I think means that I would also be unable to disarm it if it was armed when the power was disconnected.

Is this the expected behavior? Can the arming status not be changed if it is on backup power?

Thanks for any help provided!

Official Solution

Community Admin

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812 Messages

2 months ago

@fhgoalie In the event of a power outage, the Base Station only accepts commands (like arming/disarming, or changes to device settings) from the Keypad. It will not accept commands from the mobile app. This is a power-saving feature so your Base Station's backup batteries will have power for as long as possible. 

 

For more details regarding how the SimpliSafe system responds during a power outage, see the What does the error "Power Outage" mean article in the Help Center.

9 Messages

So if the power is out, there is no way to arm or disarm the system until it comes back online if you are not physically at the property? Wow, that seems extremely limiting, and definitely something that should be reconsidered. Other security apps do allow communications during a power outage. 

Can you explain why something (not me) sent a disarming command after the power was removed? I didn't do it. The Timeline says it was sent by the app, but I didn't do anything when I unplugged the base station. That makes me wonder if it disarms the system by default. My goal was to see how long the battery would last and I only tried to change the status after 24 hours had passed. 

Captain

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6.2K Messages

@simplisafe_admin​ I stand corrected, but still suggest the article be updated to explicitly state you will be unable to use the phone app to turn the arm off and on.

1.4K Messages

@fhgoalie​ I just simulated your test, except the battery time test.

What happened?

After unplugging the base station twice, it announced Warning, Power Outage, Now Running on Backup Batteries. (The voice reminds me of V.I.K.I in iRobot. 😂)

Anyhow, after the announcement I hit arm home and it worked in the app, but only for about 10 seconds. Base wifi dropped shortly after unplugging.

So I monitored the base wifi connection in the app as I tested again. This base, a new one by the way, on 2.17 firmware, dropped the WiFi after unplugging in about 10 seconds each test.

Look in base station settings when testing to see if your base WiFi also drops. You may want to wait when plugging back in to see if it reconnects on it own in a while.

Mine didn't reconnect on it's on, but I didn't wait 10 minutes either. I had to manually connect base back to WiFi in two unplug tests.

If you're home you can handle it, if your away and have an actual power outage, unless your WiFi is on a universal power supply its going down also and will not be able to communicate via the app to home. Especially if the base drop WiFi anyhow.

I don't have monitoring to test cellular, but think that's just to monitor sensors and send an alarm to the monitoring center. Test if yiu wish and if you have monitoring.

But assuming batteries last until power comes back even if the above is SS programmed, it still works via cellular for alarms, supposedly. Really it should reconnect on its own to WiFi when the router is back up.

My WiFi was never down in the test, unplugged base only like your test.

As to the random disarm command and message, I didn't get any of that, except when fiddling with the keypad.

There is a ghost bug disarm message, floating around the forum about that but no resolution yet known from the developers.

Keypad does work when unplugged, assuming Bluetooth or RF connection.

Captain

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6.2K Messages

2 months ago

@fhgoalie You should be able to arm and disarm via the app or keypad on backup, however, I recommend you call support and choose the option of system setup and ask any questions you may have. They are a friendly and helpful group overall.

Also the link below should help.

https://support.simplisafe.com/conversations/gen-3-simplisafe/app-failure-to-armdisarm-during-power-failure/63de8c6c6cf9c9747c4d41ff

Please post your your experience here if you get a chance.

To Simplisafe: After using the search tool I could not find an article on this topic, and it is a good one. Please add asap.

(edited)

9 Messages

@captain11 Thanks for that link.

One of the comments says this: I unplugged base station from AC wall power and was still able to arm and disarm the system from the app.  Just another data point.

The admin said that's not possible, so is it a feature that was removed?

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