‎If system is already armed in Away, Scheduled Arming should not be able to arm Home | SimpliSafe Support Home
 
SeaSalt's profile

Tuesday, May 9th, 2023 2:07 AM

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If system is already armed in Away, Scheduled Arming should not be able to arm Home

I appreciate the addition of scheduling arming.  However, after testing, the present algorithm has a big enough flaw that for me, it's not worth using yet.


Specifically, if my system is armed in away mode and a scheduled Arm to home mode time occurs, the system will re-arm in home mode, inactivating the motion detectors.  

Practical implication:  Say my system is set to arm itself in home mode nightly - but tonight I'm staying out late or I'm going on a trip, so my home is unoccupied, and Simplisafe is sitting there armed in away mode.  The scheduled arming event will degrade my protection and turn off the motion detection.

RECOMMENDATION:  Update programming for scheduled arming so that IF (a system is armed in away mode) AND (a scheduled Arm to home mode) event occurs), THEN (the system remains Armed in Away Mode).  This could be either the default or made an option.  Thanks

Official Solution

Community Admin

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5.6K Messages

9 months ago

Hi folks,

An update on this request. Per our dev team, we have decided to keep the current behavior. We have learned from customer feedback that there are some scenarios where the user would want the Scheduled Arm to override the current state.

But we do also have a Vacation Mode available for Scheduled Arming, which allows you to put a pause on your schedules - e.g. when you know you'll be away and would prefer that the system stay on Away Mode the whole time. You can learn more about it here.

4 Messages


can you please describe a scenario? It seems very very shortsighted. Imagine having scheduled Arming  in home mode for 9 o’clock home every night. But one night I decide to go out to dinner and I set my system to away mode. It becomes burdensome to have to remember to turn off the scheduled arm. If anything, you should give a user an option. As simple as would you like this arm mode to override the current state of the system if already armed? 

in its current configuration this is an unusable feature.

5 Messages

@davey_d​ Thanks for providing an update on this. It's nice to see that feedback on this feature was seriously considered. I'm having a hard time understanding a scenario where a homeowner would want scheduled arming to override the current armed state (home or away). While vacation mode is a nice feature, it does not solve the issue of being out late on an evening and having your scheduled arming override "Away" mode and switch to "Home". That being said, a compromise feature would be to add an "Override current armed state" toggle switch. This would solve the problem for ALL users as we would get to choose if we want scheduled arming to override our current armed state. If I had that switch, I would always leave it deactivated so that scheduled home arming would never override an away armed state (but WOULD override "off" state.  I hope this is something that the Dev team would consider for future sprints. Thank you!

(edited)

8 Messages

@davey_d​ Thanks for responding, @davey_d -- I concur with @ohbrotherson. Any explanation why there can't be a toggle that would give the user control as to whether it overrides or not.  

4 Messages

Yes, please describe a scenario where someone would want the schedule to override??? 

Community Admin

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3.1K Messages

Hi everyone,

We never want to make decisions about your system on your behalf. When creating an Arming Schedule, the time you would like your system to arm and disarm was specifically chosen. We wouldn’t want to override this schedule on the assumption that you would like to keep your system armed in Away Mode. That’s why we created Vacation Mode, so you can temporarily pause your Arming Schedule when you want to keep your system armed in a certain state.

Other home security companies also have their own scheduled arming features set up this way.

Community Admin

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5.6K Messages

1 year ago

Hi @SeaSalt ,


Thanks for the suggestion. I've SUBMITTED your idea to our dev team. We'll keep you updated if it's picked up.

(edited)

4 Messages

@davey_d​ how did your devs overlook this part of the programming?!?!? Piss poor planning on SimpliSafe's part. This should definitely be implemented not just passed on to the devs. 

4 Messages

1 year ago

@SeaSalt unbelievable that they completely overlooked this part of the programming... Either incompetence or pure laziness.

2 Messages

1 year ago

I recently setup scheduled arming to arm my system each evening at a set time to home mode.  This works ok but becomes an issue when I leave home and arm my system in away mode.  If armed in away mode when the scheduled home mode time occurs the system will change from away to home.  This is not preferred as I believe my motion sensors are now bypassed meaning less possible protection when I am away from home.  I'd rather the scheduled arming leave the system as-is I'd already armed in away mode (as another security system I previously had did).  Can this change be made to scheduled arming?

Note: This comment was created from a merged conversation originally titled Scheduled Arming Issue

Community Admin

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5.6K Messages

@crazyace​ thanks for checking in. I've merged your comment into this existing request thread. Our dev team is already aware of this request, and I'll keep you updated when the feature is in development.

1 year ago

I would love if the new schedule feature to arm and disarm the system would not "override" our "away" mode to our scheduled "home" mode automatically. It should not override the "away" mode already active in the system to the scheduled "armed "home" Due to this, I cannot use it because when we travel we do not want the system to go from our armed "away" mode to armed "home" that is scheduled. 

Note: This comment was created from a merged conversation originally titled New Scheduled Arm/Disarm

61 Messages

1 year ago

I have a scheduled arming to "Home" mode at 9:50pm. When I leave the house I arm it in "Away" mode. At 9:50pm the system get set to "Home" mode. The system needs to check if it is armed in "Away" mode and not set it to home.

There needs to be a way to pause the Scheduled arming.

Note: This comment was created from a merged conversation originally titled Schedule Arming Improvment

Community Admin

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3.1K Messages

Hi @tls​, 

Thanks for the suggestion! I've gone ahead and merged your post into this existing thread. This idea has been submitted to our dev team - once we get any updates we'll let you all know in this thread. 

1 Message

1 year ago

The update should also prevent scheduled disarming ("OFF") when in "AWAY" mode.

175 Messages

1 year ago

WOW!  BOTH of these (not arming into HOME when already armed in AWAY or not disarming automatically when AWAY). seem like alarm 101 and should NOT have been overlooked!  and should not just be a suggestion to the developers... but a CRITICAL FIX and released immediately!

1 Message

1 year ago

I completely agree that functionality to override the schedule should be built in. The if Away idea described above would be fine.

If there are concerns about that approach, consider adding quick on/off buttons to each scheduled arming like Kasa and MyQ do in their apps.

Thanks for considering.

13 Messages

1 year ago

Currently if the new automatic Home Mode is set up, it kicks in no matter what mode the system is in, including Away mode. This seems like a bug. Expected behavior: only kick in if the system is not armed. 

Note: This comment was created from a merged conversation originally titled Scheduled Home Mode should not activate when in Away mode

Community Admin

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3.1K Messages

@shawnkayn​ Thank you for your suggestion. I've merged your post into this preexisting thread. This has been submitted to our dev team - once the feature is brought into development we'll provide an update here.

13 Messages

Given the criticality of this bug, please consider escalating. This bug should be patched up ASAP in a hotfix. Not linger in some obscure community thread that is more than 1 month old! 

13 Messages

Any updates?

13 Messages

Emily, any update on this? It’s been more than 3 months. We’re on vacation and again noticed that every night the system is auto changing from Away back to Home. This is a huge security vulnerability. Can we please patch this up asap? Honestly this should be a quick one-liner fix: if (trigger_time && not armed), set(Home); 

Community Admin

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3.1K Messages

@shawnkayn​ We don't have an update on this request yet, but we do have a Vacation Mode feature. Vacation Mode allows you to pause any arming schedules you have previously created so your system can maintain the armed state you set it to.

To enable Vacation Mode in the SimpliSafe mobile app, navigate to the three-bar menu icon in the top left corner > My System > Scheduled Arming > toggle Vacation Mode on.

1 Message

1 year ago

+1 to this, needs fixing asap

5 Messages

1 year ago

+1 to this as well. Whoever the product owner is that didn't think this part of the UI through should be kicking themselves. Where was the beta testing? Where is the ability to submit feedback when a new feature is implemented? You have a more than willing group of folks here. USE us. Otherwise, these additional features that aren't thought through lead to a poor customer experience. I will be keeping my scheduled arming off until this is fixed

1.3K Messages

11 months ago

I've recently noticed the behavior of scheduled arming could stand some improvement.

Since we are normally home I have scheduled arming set to activate Home mode.

Problem I noticed is when we are away and have the system set to Away, the scheduled arming reverts the system to Home mode.

I think scheduled arming should not "downgrade" a higher system state unless the scheduled action is "Off".

(BTW, not sure if I've previously said how much I utterly detest this "community" style forum. In case not, there it is.)

Note: This comment was created from a merged conversation originally titled Scheduled arming operation

4 Messages

9 months ago

Please add yet another customer who loves my SimpliSafe system and agrees that scheduled arming should defiantly not override an Away mode with a scheduled Home mode. It really should be pretty simple: scheduled arming will only activate IF the system has not already been armed manually. This is just like arming reminders (which don’t send if the system is already armed, which makes total sense) scheduled arming in its current configuration makes no sense and cannot yet be used until that is changed.

1 Message

8 months ago

Chiming in with my support for not allowing scheduled arming to override "away" with "home".  Arming states should be a security pyramid or ladder with "off" at the bottom, "home" in the middle, and "away" at the top. Automation is designed to step up a level of security - never to step down. I appreciate that you offer a "vacation mode" but that requires intervention by the end user to stop a behavior that should never be allowed by scheduled arming.

Having used other alarm products before, I can tell you that the way you chose to implement this is completely backwards from the rest of the industry (and without good reason).

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