System totally dead!

Give support a call.  They don't pay much attention to this forum and will likely not see your post anytime soon, if ever.

And post back what SS says, this should be interesting.

Not to throw salt in your wounds but, if the system died, how would you expect a dead system to send you a notification that it is dead?

So, I did call and they are overnighting a replacement.  The system worked fine when I went to bed, woke up to find it dead, unresponsive, and my app showing I suddenly have NO devices.  YES, it is an understandable default that if the system goes out, it should disarm - otherwise you're trapped in your house I supposed, but HERE is the real issue, one I intend to talk to SS about:  when the base dies like mine did suddenly, it takes your ENTIRE SYSTEM WITH IT.  Every door sensor, every window and motion sensor - GONE.  You are completely and totally without a security system.  There is NO redundancy in this case, none.  

I don't know what the solution might be, but my previous system could handle the base going out with a quite STOUT battery backup (I had the system for 5+ years and never once had to replace the battery).  I know the SS base has battery backup that supposed to go 24 hours, but in this case the entire UNIT just died.  So, I'm dead in the water.  

It's really a pall on my confidence in SS.  I'm newish, only had the system for a couple months and have sung its praises.  Now I'm second guessing the decision.  In the few months I've had the system I had one sensor die (easy battery replacement, but still), TWO key fobs just totally stop working and had to be replaced, and now my base station just died.   Not a great record.

@whoaru99:  This is the purpose of a "heartbeat" signal.  The system sends a signal every-so-often to the monitoring station.  If the signal isn't received for some period of time, treat it like an alarm.  The higher the security required, the more-frequent the heartbeat signal.  High-security alarms (e.g. banks) send a continuous heartbeat (encrypted now, I'm sure).  

Simplisafe 3 does a daily sort-of heartbeat ("test signal"), which should be good-enough for a home. SS2 does one only weekly, which is good enough for most homes not in a city.  I don't recall if SS will call you if the heartbeat fails. SS is not intended for high-security needs.

Hearbeat monitoring costs money, which is why the cheaper the system, the less-frequent the heartbeat, if any at all.  Consumer systems like SS are definitely on the cheap end.

@susanski, the base is the central controller of the alarm system.  If it dies the alarm is dead, which is true for any alarm system.  The size of the battery backup doesn't matter if the controller it's hooked to is dead.  It also wouldn't matter if all the devices were still listed; if the base (controller) is dead, they have no way to communicate with central monitoring.

Electronics fail sometimes.  fortunately relatively rarely.  SS is a consumer system with consumer-level security and reliability (vs. commercial), not a high-security system.  Fortunately, it sounds like SS is doing the right thing by shipping a replacement asap.

Word of caution:  Check up on the tracking for the replacement later today and make sure they shipped it...

Neither SS nor monitoring call if a daily or weekly test signal isn't received. Before I got SS2 (and later, SS3), I saw posts by SS stating they would call the customer if a signal was not received.  I had several instances with SS2 (and a couple with SS3), and never once received a call.

But, back to the OP, the point is, even the battery backup didn't work for her system, that's not a good feeling for a first-time SS3 user.  (and it IS an inconvenience to have to start over with entering sensors, etc on a new base - maybe some people wouldn't have a problem with that, but others do, I think I would).

@ susanski609, just a head's up, even though SS makes the claim "up to 24 hours for battery backup" for the base station in the event of a power outage, I've seen several posts here that indicated that up to 8 hours is more like it, generally (sometimes less, sometimes more).  Some might have better mileage, no one really knows until it happens.

Wouldn't be nice to be able to backup the SS3 configuration just in case the base station dies?  In this case, all the customer would have to do is export the configuration file from the computer once the new base station is up and running.  For those of us who have 40+ devices on the system, think of the time and frustration that would be saved.

Maybe SS3 is different but on SS2 I believe the config is saved on the USB keyfob doohickey (on the presumption, that is,  you actually do it). Hopefully SS3 has not gone backwards in facilitating a configuration restore utility.

The SS3 keyfob is pretty much useless.  It has no USB capabilities.  It's sealed.  When the battery is dead, you toss it in the trash and buy another one.  Or not. Mine's sitting in the junk drawer in my kitchen.

No, SS3 does not have a keyfob resident program.

So just to update:

New base station arrived, had some trouble getting it to setup so I had to call tech support, eventually got it up.  To my surprise, all the devices re-appeared with it, but they were nameless, showing only serial numbers, so I did have to go through the process of identifying which was which and renaming them.  Better than having to completely reinstall them, I suppose.

The tech had no insight on what had happened with my original base station.  She did lamely offer that maybe the unit had been unplugged, then battery drained, then died?  But I can't even unplug my base station for a millisecond without getting text and email about a power outage, so that could not have been it.  SS has now replaced my base station, two key fobs, and I had one sensor battery die within the first 30 days.  I sent a long letter to SS tech support, asking them to respond to my concern that there appears to be no actual backup, no notification of a system just completely dying or shutting itself off, but that was more than a week ago and I've received no reply at all.  

I'm starting to think my "new" system may in fact have been a refurbished system.

@susanski609, I believe your description of "lame" for the reason given by the SS is accurate, as even if the base did get unplugged and batteries were completely drained, once plugged back in, it would have worked fine if the unit was okay.  Do hope your replacement base works fine.  My SS3 has been fine since receiving it (Jan '18).

@whoaru99  actually, I think the "don't know" response  is anything but lame, and in fact, respect the honesty. A "but I will put in a ticket to the next level support to find out and get back to you" would definitely be better.  (yes, rare these days).

Something is going on. Both cameras were working fine and then nothing. Can't log on to app and both cameras are flashing green. they will not connect!!!  everything is just spinning.