‎Questions Re: Active Guard Outdoor Protection | SimpliSafe Support Home
 
worthing's profile

Friday, September 13th, 2024 5:05 AM

Questions Re: Active Guard Outdoor Protection

Hi SimpliSafe,

I have some questions about the newly announced Active Guard Outdoor Protection service offering. I've looked for and haven't found answers to these questions but as always, if they exist somewhere, please tell me where and I apologize in advance. (And I'll apologize again, I promise!) Otherwise...

1. The Active Guard Indoor service is included with your Core monitoring and above. Recently Core monitoring was increased to $32 a month which includes (it is implied...) 24/7 AG. Why then does 24/7 AG Outdoor Protection increase the price from $32/month to $80/month, more than 2x the previous price? I understand there's likely (but not definitely) going to be more work involved from y'alls end for the Outdoor service but an extra $48 a month worth of extra work? Are y'all really saying that you can provide everything involved with Core services for $32 but just adding AG Outdoor costs, by itself, $48 dollars?

2. Does the AG Outdoor service only work with the Outdoor Cameras? It seems to be implied this is the case but it's not outright stated. 

3. When used with the Outdoor Cameras, does the AG Outdoor service work regardless of the power configuration? That is, will it work the same (in terms of response times, effectiveness, accuracy, etc.) when the Outdoor Camera is:

- Running on just batteries

- Plugged into some sort of power source but below the power threshold for performance mode

- Plugged into some sort of power source and in performance mode

4. Can you tell us more about what you're using AI for in this service and how AI improves the service? Related to this, will we be able to add "friendly faces" (like Wyze and Google and others have) that are ignored by the camera?

That's it for now. I look forward to your responses! And again I'm sorry if these questions were answered elsewhere.

Official Solution

Community Admin

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5.7K Messages

21 days ago

Hi Worthing,

You’re already familiar with Intruder Intervention (which we previously called Live Guard Protection). That’s the service where if you opt in, and if there’s an alarm event, agents can use the Smart Alarm Indoor Camera to see and speak to intruders to help stop crime in real time. As you mention,  this feature is available on the Core, Pro, and Pro Plus plans.

At this time, Active Guard Outdoor Protection (and the associated Pro and Pro Plus Monitoring Plans) is available only to a limited number of customers. We haven’t yet started talking about specific features to a broader audience. What we can tell you is that it will be focused on outdoor environments only and thus will require outdoor cameras to function.

The new feature will also require cameras to be plugged in. On battery power, our outdoor cameras are optimized for balancing performance and power savings when operating. When plugged in, cameras are able to be always on, and are optimized for high performance and better time-to-livestream. Plugging in your cameras enables us to act faster, see further, and communicate better without worrying about how much battery power is left.

We’ve got a lot more info coming your way regarding Active Guard Outdoor Protection. Please stay tuned!

1.3K Messages

26 days ago

If I was a buyer, which I'm not, I'd ask some questions also.

Personally, I don't expect any answer, never get any for months, but do want it out on Google search for smart due diligence searcher's.

Especially as to how in the world it could possibly work at all without using "only" power cables, which at least one user (I know of) reports here, that with proper home construction, mesh etc., "seems" to sorta work in performance mode with existing offerings.

IMHO, Solar and batteries live view won't cut it as they currently can't perform today.

8 to 14+ seconds live views on solar, and if any come on batteries only, its unknown to me the speed. Tail end, back of the head detections with only batteries, agents won't have anything to look at but the potential perps/persons back.

If the Ai detection is working at all, why doesn't it work now? Hasn't been that intelligent for me in 19 months I've owned OD cameras.

Agents will be observing a lot of bushes, leaves and headlight wash and false detections.

I run my 5 solar outdoor on mostly all motion, but extremely hard down angles. Perp or person is on the front porch before anyone sees them. Otherwise massive false detections and that leads to dead batteries. Catch-22.

The OD cameras only see humans at about 30 or less feet maximum. Exceptions, bushes, trees, birds, bugs, a rare animal in range, tractor trailers at 150+ feet etc.etc..

I know it's too late and being vague is your modus operandi, but shouldn't it be polished and function properly before release? Or at least work adequately now?

Maybe new cameras that actually "work as advertised" and with any type power supplied, no batteries or customer choice, and with any powerful enough, 2.4ghz WiFi?

Are Doorbells Pro included in this new service?

They don't even work well right now in all installed instances and are wired power.

Must new users and old OD cameras owners opting into this new service pay extra for those funky audio enhancers @captain11 @worthing and I were discussing about 7 months ago when they leaked on Reddit?

I've seen them mounted on OD cams in "recent weeks" web advertising. Its not a secret. Oops.

You're leaving out too many details about these new offerings that existing and new customer's deserve to know before buying into an almost assuredly a live Beta test.

Shouldn't the long and ongoing years of issues be actually really fixed before releasing more headaches for new or old customers?

Are you swapping out old OD and doorbell cams that are mediocre at best for something totally new and actually functional?

729 Messages

13 days ago

@davey_d 

I appreciate the partial response to my questions. Can you please take a stab at explaining how just adding the outdoor protection 24/7 more than doubles the price of the service?

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