Investing In Our Future: Important Changes to Professional Monitoring Plans

And for all customers, unless Simplisafe has cancelled it (who knows since they really didn't officially announce the following) a customer can pre-pay 1 year of monitoring service and get two (2) months at no charge!  You can do the math but this represents a value/discount north of 54 bucks!!

I'm afraid I'll have to correct you there, Captain. The Yearly Plan is the price of 11 months, so it would be 1 month free. Meaning that the Interactive Yearly Plan is now $307.89/yr.

But you might be thinking of the first month free that we make available for all Interactive customers. So your first year with a yearly plan would indeed get a discount of 2 months - saving $55.98!

Granted, $3 is not much but I remember the early days of SimpliSafe and the marketing claims promising they wouldn't increase their prices. I would hope they'd grandfather in their loyal customers who have made their growth possible over the years. I kinda wish I hadn't bought that third system recently. 

@davey_d​ I hereby stand corrected. Thanks for the fact checking. Still not a bad return for prepaying. Please ask marcom to advertise it properly on your website, and train agents to offer it. One of the best kept secrets in the company!

@Neekus​ we do understand that any price change can be concerning in this time. But we hope you find that we're still providing great value and great service - which will get even better as we continue to invest!

Of course, we sincerely appreciate you choosing us to protect your three locations. I would strongly suggest reaching out to our Support team at 1-800-203-8013, so we can check on special offers available to you.

@doncross72​ Sounds like you might have heard about the great news already. Just so it's clear, the new benefit applies both to new and existing customers. If you're already on Interactive Monitoring, the Protection Plan for the lifetime of your service, AND a 10% discount on all additional equipment purchases, applies to you as well!

This is all great news for for us customers that have the interactive plan.  Given the price and for what it provides it is the best value, in my opinion, in the home security industry.  I do have a question however does this lifetime warranty apply to products that have a limited product life?  For example smoke and Co sensors which I believe are good for 5 years.  If it does that would be unheard of in this or almost any other  product segment!

Another great question, Captain. Per the Terms of Service, the current Protection Plan does not specify a limitation based on the product's lifespan. So yes, we'll replace your Smoke and CO Detectors as well! But I will clarify further if I hear differently in the future.

@davey_d​ As my six smoke sensors and three Co sensors were purchased in 2018, this is indeed great news!

Hi @captain11 , as promised, I have an update for you. The Protection Plan offered with Interactive Monitoring will cover replacements for life safety products with limited lives only during those products’ lifetime (5.5 years for Carbon Monoxide Detectors, 10 years for Smoke Detectors, from the date of manufacture as written on the device). After that time, you should replace them to ensure proper performance. We’re also updating our terms to ensure any subscriptions who upgrade to Interactive have full access to the Interactive Protection Plan.

Our Terms of Service here will provide any future information and updates.

@rgollar​ We understand where you're coming from. That's why we held on to the same pricing for over a decade. Unfortunately, we're under the same pressures that are affecting companies everywhere, with the cost of doing business continuing to rise.

With that said, we are determined to earn this increase, by continually improving your service in important ways. If you're on Interactive Monitoring, you're already covered under a lifetime protection plan, so you'll never have to worry about replacing equipment for as long as you're subscribed. That's on top of the 10% discount for all equipment - even for brand new devices coming in the future. And we'll continue to bring more value to your service in the future.

Thank you for replying and I get what your saying. 

@baldar538​ Thanks for the feedback! I'm glad you were able to take advantage of one great feature that hasn't changed - the fact that ALL of our our plans remain contract-free, so your service can change with your needs.

Still, it doesn't feel right to me that you don't have full confidence in your system. I'd like to put you in touch with one of our Specialists, so we can make sure your Motion Sensors are working properly.

But I also wanted to point out another feature of Interactive Monitoring that can help with false alarms: Video Verification. When there's an alarm at your location, your system can send video of just that one event to our operators. So they can check if there really is an intruder, even when you're not available!

There really isn't anything to talk to support about. Motion sensors were advertised as not being able to detect small animals. My cats were detected all of the time. I eventually set them all to secret alert because the cats were setting them off constantly.  After quite a bit of time of moving them and/or turning them upside down they seem to be working now. But I left them on secret alert just in case. Your team hasn't called me for months on them because I don't want them calling the police because our cats found a new angle to run across a room and trigger them. 

The only reason I even have the motion sensors is because your store has a line that says “Pro tip: Get one to protect rooms on the ground level with 3 or more windows. Skip getting entry sensors for these windows.”. I was a sucker and believed that at first. Then once it was implemented and I saw how home mode worked it was pretty obvious motion sensors couldn’t replace entry sensor no matter what the pro tip tried to claim. So, I got to make a second order with a bunch of entry sensors.

Am I 100% sure the cats won’t set them off again? No. Am I 100% sure someone wouldn’t be able to avoid them with their new locations and some being upside down? No. Can support do anything to fix this? No. 

But since we are on the subject of your product - lets start throwing everything out there. The app. Seriously? One login per account - so if I have someone watch my house for a week and want to give them access I need to give them my credentials. Or what if I wanted to share a bunch of videos with the police (which I had to do with my outside cameras in the past) - Either download them all, or give the police access to my entire account. Sweet. I want my kids to be able to see who is at the door when the doorbell rings. Oh, give them full access to everything also. 

Lets talk about those outdoor cameras. I haven't ordered yours even though I could replace what I have out there and save $10/mo. Why haven't I? Look at the reviews of yours. Also look at the feature set. Yes, they are cheaper than what I have, but mine have animal, person, vehicle smart detection and many other features. You are definitely the limited features on a budget option in that space.

But I begrudgingly dealt with that at $25/mo. Then it went up to $28 so I had to reevaluate. Lets look at your plans.

$10 - Monitor it myself. Get my smart alerts and check cat videos without a call before calling police. Base station is already in my bedroom so if something happens at night I could likely react faster than your team because I'd be right here. Supports 5 cameras which is all I have. 

What do I get for $18 more? A cellular connection - lets do some thinking on this. I live in a low threat area in the lowest 10 crime cities in my state. My internet connection and power are reliable. What are really the odds that someone will be breaking into my house during one of those small windows? Slim to none. You stretch out the other top 3 of 4 checkboxes into features, but they are all part of the same process (Fire/Medical/Guard dispatch, Police Dispatch and video verification could all be written into one line - but you are trying to make it look impressive). That leaves a discount on products I likely won't be buying and a warranty I don't want because if something broke it may justify me leaving. 

So - how often does the average house get broken into? How often are there false alerts? Someone in your business has those stats. The monitoring/alerting infrastructure is the same whether I'm monitoring or you are, so no changes there. That $18/mo goes towards paying people to be there to call. And most of your customers won't get a call, but I'd imagine those that do are usually false positives for some reason or other. I get you have to pay people, but I also know your people have already done this math (well, I'd hope anyways). That's $216 per customer per year that you most likely never have to do much for other than maintain some infrastructure. That's a nice chunk of change multiplied across your customer base.

How many of these customers could react just as fast, or faster with a self monitored plan? When my cats were setting it off, I had video verification on. Your people still called me, so I could check and see my cats run across the room. I love cat videos as much as the next guy, but I don't need to pay $18/mo for someone to tell me they exist. I could have watched the video myself and called the police faster than whatever was going on there. 

But now the big elephant in the room - you have the most expensive DIY security monthly fee outside of FrontPoint. I think they are really expensive and I wouldn't pay for it, but they do bring some features you do not like geofencing.

Ring is $20 a month - same as you plus better Alexa integration, ability to use the cellular for limited data uploads, and some internet security features with Eero. 

Cove is $25 a month - looks similar to you - lifetime warranty too - but they have communications through the voice panel in case of emergency. They also do their equipment perk as a $5/mo reward - The difference here is every few months you could essentially get a free sensor. On yours there will always be money out of pocket.

Kangaroo - definitely not as many features as you and hard to do apples to apples - but $8.25 month with interactive monitoring. They are able to pretty much supply what you are putting a $18 upcharge on for less than your self monitored plan (minus the camera amounts as they only support 3). Still probably a better deal for many of your customers than your current offerings.

Wyze - Again not all of the features, but they do supply 24/7 interactive monitoring for.... $4.99 mo.. A lot less than that $18 upcharge.

And - Abode - $20 month. Same features as you it looks like. Plus better smart home integration, camera backups over the backup cellular, unlimited cameras, and person detection.

So - you are the most expensive monthly option and when compared to the rest of your market you have nothing to justify that price with. Anyone who can do math knows that the average customer is not going to get $36 of value out of your two new added "features" (warranty and discount). Your app is lackluster, you don't have the feature set of other competitors but charge more, your "innovative" sensors could have their functionality duplicated by a teenager with an Arduino. You are really upping your price to play catch up to the rest of the field.

I'm down to self monitoring as my threat profile is FAR from needing to pay $18/mo from what you are adding there. I'd be an ex-customer, but I just bought into your system last fall and spent quite a bit of money ($800ish between the two orders since your Pro-Tip on the motion sensors was just to get me to buy more stuff). So, I'm sticking with it on self monitored until I feel that my sunk costs + whatever I get for this crud on eBay makes me feel like I'm not out too much. After that I'm off to one of your competitors who don't think so highly of themselves and have delusions of grandeur about their place in the world and the values of their "innovations" (aka catch ups).

@baldar538​ We have one cat. She set off the motion detector in the basement a couple of weeks after we got the system, scaring us have to death. We turned the motion detector over and put it about 4’ off the floor and it’s been good since. We have one outside camera she set off twice today. At least it doesn’t set off the alarm. 

Monitoring is the bread and butter of alarm services: money for nothing (but no chicks for free). We left Xfinity as they were raising their monthly fee to $40. I think you’re right in switching to self-monitoring. We also live in a very safe area. Some of our neighbors don’t even lock their doors.

@usmaak​ Their competitors aren't more expensive, at least not anymore. The only one I could find with a higher monthly fee was FrontPoint and that was so high I don't know how they stay competitive. Maybe they offer some feature I'm not quite understanding.

Cove is $25, Ring is $20, Abode is $20, Kangaroo is $8.25, Wyze is $4.99. The higher end ones have at least the same functionality as Simplisafe. The cheaper ones do not, but may have just what some customers actually need. 

Outside of FrontPoint I couldn't find anyone priced higher in the DIY security space. The "professional" (ADT, Comcast, Vivent) ones cost more - but they also have a slightly different business model. In the, "We will provide a website with incorrect recommendations to help you build a system, you figure out placement and install it all, and we sit back and collect a fee just because we may need to make a call on your behalf" space - Simplisafe isn't really cheap.

@baldar538​ I read your well thought out response above and it has made me rethink this.  I came here a couple of years ago from ADT, who was charging me $62 per month.  I guess I was just too narrowly focused on that and how much I've saved by ditching them and coming over to SS.

And part may be that I have spent so much money on this system.  I have sensors everywhere.  Nobody likes realizing that perhaps a mistake was made.  I don't have cats like you do, but someday I will and considering that I have five motion sensors set up, that is a consideration.

@usmaak​ ADTs offering that you had before is still going to be expensive. But with all the players in the DIY space they have a new offering called ADT Blue to compete in this market.

They are at $19.99+tax a month  - https://www.bluebyadt.com/monitoring-plans/

Besides the crazy $50/mo over at FrontPoint, I can't find anyone more expensive than Simplisafe in the DIY space. Being expensive is ok if you are providing features the others are not, but in this case it seems like the cheaper options are more feature rich. Simplisafe customers are getting nothing for the difference between them and the competitors other than lighter wallets.

@baldar538​ I priced out an ADT system to match what I have.  That doesn't include glass break sensors, temperature sensors, water sensors, or smoke detectors because ADT doesn't have those.  The price is $1,509.73.

I don't know at this point how much I have spent on sensors for SS.  I got some of them on sale and some came with my initial system, which was 50% off.

It's interesting to see that ADT jumped on the DIY bandwagon.  The monitoring for their installed system was ridiculously expensive.  I signed a three year contract and out of the deal, I got three door sensors, one glass break, two motion detectors and one window sensor.  They sold me on the whole motion detectors > window sensors thing.  That system was a joke.  I could walk into one of the rooms with the motion sensor, get something, and walk out without it going off.

I've always been interested in Ring because I have a Ring doorbell.

It looks like ADT has a combo floor and temp sensor. I didn’t notice the other two. I have one glassbreak sensor. It wasn’t necessary to do more than that as I only have one window that could set off a glassbreak sensor if it was hit. 

I also have Nest smoke and.CO detectors that I had before I bought SS. I liked the Nest ones better anyways. 

I know what I’ve spent on SimpliSafe gear. When I put a build close to what I have it was about double. But then I found ADT Blue does their discounts with promo codes. Entered the code HALFOFF and the gear was about the same price. The only thing different from what I currently have is one glassbreak sensor. 

Anyways, there are a lot of companies in this space or getting into it. Only one seems to be raising their prices. 

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*Sigh*

Really, its 3 dollars, thank your president for this ok, my company just went up as well and we went up 5 dollars a visit so there you go, its still better than any other company prices. Try adt, cpi, vivint, then tell me how that goes and we will sot here and wait.

@lance843​ - "Thank your president for this". Oh dear... I take it you're another Trumper who thinks price gouging under inflation pretense is Biden's fault... Let's not think about all the corporate deregulation that the GOP has created for decades, which allows corporations to do pretty much what they want. But yeah, it's Biden's fault...

Now, if you're happy being price-gouged, good for you! And what does your company have anything to do with this? Are you a multi-million dollar company that is a (the?) leader in the field of home security? Yeah, thought not.

Anyhoo, no need to respond to this message - not interested about arguing with a stranger on the internet.

Have a nice day.

Not interested in talking to a liberal anyway, and yes anyone but who's in there now. He doesn't even know who he is.

@masonfoley​ unfortunately no, we're not able to share a specific road map on upcoming features. But we are definitely listening.

Our Product Requests and Suggestions section on this Community is actively read by our engineering and dev teams. I encourage all of our users to interact there, so we can show them which ideas should be the highest priority!

@harold24915​ sorry about the inconvenience.

Not sure what you're referring to with that first part, but it sounds like your system is having issues that a Base Station Reset might fix. The most common issue like that would be with connectivity - so of course it would use the same connection that the reset command would need to go through, rendering it useless.

And on top of that, resetting the system is only part of the troubleshooting. We might need to move your Base Station or try other steps, which requires having someone at the location.

For a similar reason, Base Station updates in particular have always needed to be done in person. The update itself is sent to your Base Station remotely of course, but it requires that the user initiate on site. Updating does mean that your system would be offline and unable to trigger alarms for a short time, so it needs to be done when you're there.

@deforger​ First, welcome to the community.  I have been a customer for 10 years (this April 12th) and have recommended and placed many systems with friends, family, coworkers etc. The Simplicams (3) work fine as does the doorbell camera. My two outdoor cameras work okay but will be better once the software is improved   As far as the price increase, while not great, SS does allow you to prepay 1 year and get 1 month free. The math gets you to about 2.25 less per month, close to the old price.  If you are interested, call SS and ask. And yes, communication, at times, is not Simplisafe's greatest strength, but they are working on it.

Good luck, and welcome to retirement. It's great.

PS If you want feedback on how to handle the cameras and cats, post just that in another thread and get some feedback from other customers.  Also, you can call Support to get more suggestions.

@deforger​ thanks so much for your feedback. We understand, and we hope that as you continue to get to know your system, you'll find even more value in what we can do for you. You already know that Interactive Monitoring is our all-inclusive plan, so you get unlimited video recordings for all your cameras, smart home integrations (incl. Alexa and Google Home). But did you know that you also get a permanent discount on future equipment purchases? So if you wanted to expand your system with a couple more sensors, or try our more advanced Outdoor Camera, you can get 10% off. And that's on top of the Lifetime Warranty, so you won't have to worry about faulty equipment for as long as you have active service.

And I hear you on the matter of being cost-conscious - a lot of us are feeling the pinch these days! But one of the things that hasn't changed is our commitment to giving our customers more choice. If you haven't already, I strongly suggest giving our Support team a call at 800-548-9508. We'll be happy to offer some options.