Good morning,
Former Surety customer here. (I only left because we sold our home a few years ago.)
Looking for a security system for a new home and see that Simplysafe has made a lot of upgrades. What are the advantages to building out a 2gig system w/ Surety again vs using Simplysafe?
Appreciate any insight!
I donât recommend simplisafe at all they r easily hacked
Hello!
Simplisafe isnât bad. Alarm.com is a more advanced security system while Simplisafe is a lower cost option. What we try to do is get you the better system for a similar price to Simplisafe. We canât match their prices exactly but weâre getting pretty close.
If youâre building a new system I recommend Qolsys. Itâs the most advanced system available now. 2GIG hasnât innovated as much since being acquired by Nortek/Linear.
It would take a very long time to compare the Qolsys+Alarm.com with Simplisafe on every possible usage and feature. What are the most important things you want our of your system? Iâll try to offer some differences based on those.
Thank you!
I liked being able to have multi-zone monitoring on my iPhone through Alarm.com. Not just for alarm activation but also knowing when someone else from the house was in and out w/ unique codes (dog walker, etc.) and that it would notify me if I kept my garage door open (did that more than onceâŚ) That said, we had a large number of sensors last time which I imagine will be the same this time. I did have issues with 2gig secondary panel not connecting to the main panel more than once. This triggered false alarms / police response on more than one occasion.
Central station monitoring is a must.
We are very interested in installing smart home technology this time around. At least with 2gig, I know there is z-wave integration and w/ alarm.com as well but Iâve also read z-wave is not a great technology. Iâm also not sure how much better off I am with alarm.com integration for smart home features vs simplisafe with other software.
Iâm not as worried about hacking of simplisafe. Iâve read a lot about the vulnerabilities in their network and sounds like that was a major issue a few years ago but has since been fully solved by the company. So it seems anywayâŚ
I liked how the sensors were fairly discrete with the 2gig system, especially the door sensors. The Simplysafe ones look like they fit on the outside of the door and are potentially bulky but I didnât see the dimensions quickly on their website.
I think that about sums it up. The customer services from Surety was always top notch. Not sure about that at Simpisafe, but those systems seems more straightforward to setup so not sure how âimportantâ customer service is there - although probably like insurance, you donât think you need it until you need it.
Thanks!
Oh, and I like that Simplysafe has both wifi and cellular capabilities with battery backup for power outages. (The 2gig system had the latter but not wifi + cellular.)
Regarding Simplisafe hacking, thatâs a tough subject. At itâs core, security boils down to trust. Until recently, Simplisafe systems did not use encryption. New Simplisafe systems do now but theyâre not very forthcoming about how it works. Qolsys/DSC & Alarm.com, on the other hand, are leaders in this space. Qolsys used encrypted sensors early on with S-Line. Now theyâre migrating to PowerG which is the most secure wireless sensor technology available. The current model Qolsys panel (IQ Panel 2+) has had PowerG support for more than a year already.
That brings us back to trust. Do you trust companies that are leaders when it comes to security or a company that puts low cost, insecure technology out there first and only fixes it as a reaction to all the bad PR they got from doing so? I doubt their current system is nearly as secure as a Qolsys & PowerG but I wouldnât know because theyâre not very open about it. Qolsys+PowerG is even UL listed as a commercial security system. They make this a very high priority.
In addition to stronger security, Alarm.com+Qolsys has
The Qolsys panel has WIFI built in as well as cellular. Alarm.com uses âdual pathâ communication which means each signal is sent by cellular and WIFI simultaneously so itâs more likely that the signal gets through quickly. Simplisafe uses cellular as a backup to WIFI which means it waits a while for the WIFI transmission to time out before it attempts to send through cellular. It saves them money on cellular service but reduces reliability and responsiveness.
Modern Z-Wave (Z-Wave Plus with S2 security) is very good technology. Itâs just optimized for different things than WIFI or Zigbee. Itâs optimized for low power combined with reliability whereas the others are higher bandwidth and higher power. Z-wave stagnated for a while because Sigma Designs didnât do a great job moving it forward but now itâs owned by Silicon Labs who knows what theyâre doing. It has huge market penetration and I expect it to continue to evolve and grow.
I agree Qolsysâ sensors donât look as nice as 2GIGâs. But if you go with the newer PowerG sensors they look pretty nice.
Iâll throw my two cents here as I was also looking at and seriously considering SimpliSafe before deciding on Qolsys panel. First off, I highly recommend subscribing to the SimpliSafe forums and reading thru a number of threads. There as a number of folks who are not entirely happy. Granted, that does occur with any brand, some more vocal than others, but I was indeed surprised as to how much negatively there was out there. Definitely worth a read.
In regards to their equipment, it was pretty much acknowledged that their motion sensors were garbage, even folks who did like their system overall. That I did not like. With the Qolsys system you can use a variety of sensor/devices. You are not locked into just the Qolsys branded devices as you are with SimpliSafe (or any of the lower tier brands - Ring, Cove, SimpliSafe) As mentioned, Qolsys supports Power G but also S-Line, 2-GIG/Honeywell or DSC devices. Just research and pick which model works best for you. I went with the Honeywell version, primarily due to the ability to integrate with my existing alarm but also due to the ability to use some of the 2GIG sensors out there. I went with some really small / low profile sensors. Worked like a charm. Similarly you can go with Power G or mix and match. So a lot more flexibility. I also believe the quality and feature sets available are quite a bit more elaborate / professional with the Qolsys vs. SimpliSafe. I consider myself a techie and the Qolsys can and is as simple to setup as a Ring or SimpliSafe system or can be more elaborate / flexible. There appears to be a ton of options that you can tinker with to adjust what and how the system alerts you if desired. Again, I mention, if desired. If you want just install and forget, then it can be that simple as well.
Overall I would persuade you to Qolsys vs. SimpliSafe. I consider the two like looking at Toyota vs a Mercedes. Will both of the job done, yes, however one definitely better quality and more options than the other.
I donât work for Surety or Qolsys, just recently upgraded and am very happy that I chose Surety.
Former Simplisafe user here. I was perfectly happy with my Simplisafe system for a year until I stumbled upon several shortcomings that I believe weâre unacceptable for a security system.
While randomly checking for an over the air system update I noticed my system had lost cell communication with the central monitoring station. Tech support was able to confirm I had been without cell backup for weeks, at least intermittently. They also confirmed I didnât receive notification of loss of cell backup. No resolution.
I noticed at least 2 sensors dropped off line. I only realized this because they were heavily used sensors (entry doors) and I stopped hearing the chime. Tech support confirmed the sensor loss of communication, they believe this was due to low or dead battery. No clear resolution, and they could not confirm of sensors in general were supervised or why I was not alerted. They did not appear to even understand what the concept of supervision was.
I have no idea if other rarely used sensors had dropped offline, no notification. Also, sensors do not have tamper switches/notification.
The deal breaker: I was able to reproduce the well publicized âjammingâ vulnerability hack with a 433mhz remote control I had laying around the house. Essentially, while pressing one of the remote buttons you could jam the sensor signal and open a door/window, walk into the house, then close the door/window undetected. Also worked on motion sensors.
I promptly ditched Simplisafe and went qolsys with PowerG sensors. The system is light-years beyond Simplisafe, and Iâve never been happier.