Chances are you've heard of SimpliSafe.
It's the industry disrupter that put everything
we thought we knew about home security
into a little box and sent it out for delivery.
There are no sales people.
There are no installers.
And best of all, with SimpliSafe, there are no contracts.
But beyond the sleek equipment and cleverly-packaged boxes,
SimpliSafe has a few secrets
they don't talk about in their ads.
Secret number one.
It's hard to do much with SimpliSafe
if you don't add a professional monitoring plan.
And the main reason for that is
there will be no mobile app access.
So you just can't see what's going on.
Out of the box, it's basically just a siren
and some motion sensors.
Which can be effective, but probably doesn't deliver
everything you want from a smart security system.
But the good news is, you have the option
to add a monitoring plan.
Their $15 standard plan gives you a connection
to the monitoring center.
So that means if something happens,
help is gonna be on the way.
And that's all that plan offers.
You can opt for the $25 interactive plan
and that is where you get everything
that SimpliSafe has to offer.
So on top of monitoring, you get the mobile app,
you get remote alert,
and you get some smart home integration.
Plus, you still have no contract.
And so that means that you can pause
and cancel the monitoring whenever you want.
But the bottom line is that
if you want more than just a siren,
adding a monitoring plan is the way to go
to get the most out of your SimpliSafe system.
Secret number two.
SimpliSafe sells its monitoring in 30-day bundles,
not calendar months.
This can seem confusing,
but it's really important and one of the coolest things
about the way SimpliSafe does monitoring.
When you activate professional monitoring
with SimpliSafe, you get 30 days.
So let's say you want to go on vacation
and have your house protected while you're away.
You can use 10 days while you're on vacation
and then when you get home you can
put the monitoring on pause
and bank the rest of your days for later.
So you would have 20 days left over
that you could use at any time.
Say if you went crazy on Cyber Monday
and had a bunch of packages coming
and you wanna make sure that porch pirates
don't take off with them.
Activate and use the remaining 20 days then.
I don't know of any other company
that lets you use your monitoring play this way.
Exactly when and how you want it.
Secret number three.
If you use your door and window sensors creatively,
you can booby trap things, kid-proof dangerous stuff,
and solve all of those "I didn't do it" mysteries.
My favorite idea is setting up a booby trap.
This would be useful to scare some sense into sneaky teens
or to solve mysteries like who really borrowed your sweater
before that mystery stain appeared.
More seriously, you can use entry sensors
to kid-proof stuff around the house.
Medicine cabinet, liquor or gun cabinets,
all great places to put a contact sensor
so that if someone's trying to open it,
you're gonna get an alert and know.
If you have a pool and you wanna make sure your kid
isn't going for an unsupervised dip,
put a contact sensor on the gate
and you'll be alerted if they're trying to get out there.
Other great ideas are a workshop or a shed
where you have sharp or dangerous tools
and harsh chemicals that you might use
around the house or in the yard.
Put a contact sensor on that to keep the kids out.
Plus, there is a bonus secret that SimpliSafe gives you.
They have a stealth mode.
So if you have the $25 monitoring plan,
you can set up secret alerts
for different motion sensors in your house.
And if there is a secret alert,
it's not gonna trigger the siren
or contact the monitoring center.
What they are gonna do is send you
a secret notice to your phone through the app
to let you know that something's going on.
For kid-proofing, I would say to skip the secret alert.
'Cause if my kid is trying to jump in the pool,
I want the alarm to go off.
However, if you're booby trapping something,
now you have a choice.
You can do a secret alert that covertly lets you know
you're kid is up to something
or you can just go at him with the full-on siren blast.
That's my personal preference.
Finally, secret number four.
You don't have to wait for a sale to save money
on a SimpliSafe system.
On the SimpliSafe website,
you can buy a refurbished system
and those are discounted right out the gate,
20 to 30% off the original prices.
All refurbished equipment is tested
and guaranteed by SimpliSafe.
And you still get the three-year equipment warranty,
plus the 60-day money back guarantee,
which I think is pretty cool.
And you can add monitoring to that refurbished system
just like you could a brand new one.
But beware that what you're getting in a refurbished system
may not be the most recent version of
the SimpliSafe security system.
And SimpliSafe has not always made
their equipment backwards compatible.
Which means people who bought the first,
very first version of SimpliSafe,
that system was not compatible with cool new things
that they came out with like the SimpliCam
or the Video Doorbell Pro.
So if the first-generation SimpliSafe customers
wanted to add this cool stuff,
they had to buy a whole new system.
So make sure you're getting the system that's gonna do
what you want it to do.
And because it's refurbished stuff
there is limited availability,
so if you see something you like,
I'd say nab it before it's gone.
Well, that's it.
Our favorite insider secrets about
the SimpliSafe home security system.
To get more information about SimpliSafe,
you can read our full review
and detailed setup instructions on safewise.com.