Gabe Turner: Hi, folks.
This is Gabe at Security Baron.
I've had an idea, a belief, a conception, a conviction, one might say, that you're into
simplicity, so today I'm reviewing the Notion Home Security System.
[music]
Gabe: In today's review of the Notion Starter Kit, I want to go over what you get in the
system, how easy and convenient it is to set up, the professional monitoring options, the
customer support.
Finally, the mobile app so that you have all the information you need to make the right
decision.
If you'd like to see a list of our favorite home security systems, Google "Security Baron,
Best Home Security Systems."
If you have a question about today's review, leave us a comment, and I'll get back to you.
I want to begin today's review of the Notion Starter Kit, talking about the components
beginning with the Notion Bridge.
The bridge covers 1,800 square feet.
It serves as the hub for your Notion Security System, allowing each of your sensors to interact
with the Notion app.
I do want to note that Notion does recommend that you get a Notion Bridge for each one
of your floors because it does serve as a range extender to make sure that every part
of your system is connected to every other part.
The entirety of the rest of your Notion system is comprised of these sensors.
The starter kit comes with three and a magnetic accessory for sliding doors and windows.
This little sensor here can detect glass breaking, motion, heat, sound.
It's an entry sensor you put on your door, your window, and you're ready to go.
That is what's really impressive about the Notion system is that you can order these
individually or packs of three and know that you're going to get all the things you want
to know about what's going on in your house in one piece.
This is what you get in your Notion Starter Kit.
Now that we've talked about all the components of the Notion Security System, let's talk
about that installation process.
The setup for the Notion is pretty easy.
It's pretty straightforward.
You're going to have that mobile application downloaded and begin by plugging in your bridge.
Make sure your bridge is connected to your WiFi.
It takes less than a minute.
Then you'll jump into setting up your sensors.
Right there in the mobile application is where you set up your sensors.
Once your bridge is ready to go, you go and put the sensors.
It says, "Add sensor," and you'll assign it task.
The first one I did was a just a door sensor.
Kept it simple.
I didn't assign it any more tasks, but I could have been like, "You know what?
I also want to know what the temperature is around my door."
That is what I did with my second one.
I just said, "Hey, let's just have this be a temperature sensor in the middle of the
room."
Now I know in this part of the room, near my couch, this is what the temperature always
is.
Then I started to stretch things out a bit with my third sensor which I put on a window.
Then I said, "I want to know if there's a water leak in here.
I also want to know the temperature.
I want to know if someone is opening and closing this window."
You can assign multiple tasks to each sensor with your Notion Starter Kit.
When it comes to orientation and where you place it, it isn't that complicated because
the Notion sensor will actually calibrate to wherever you put it.
Overall, in terms of both a digital and physical installation process, it was really easy with
the Notion Starter Kit.
Now that we've got everything up and running, let's talk about professional monitoring and
your Notion Security System.
While there is no professional monitoring with the Notion Security System, we'd like
to see the option to have that 24/7 team of professionals ready to help you out with anything
going on your home.
That's not going to happen.
With Notion, it's all going to be self-monitoring.
What's also an issue for us with the Notion Security System is the lack of cellular backup.
If you're doing all the self-monitoring yourself, that's one thing, but if your power goes out
and you can't do any self-monitoring because there's no cellular backup, that's another
thing.
No cellular backup and no professional monitoring with the Notion Security System.
Let's move on to customer support with the Notion Security System.
There are three ways to get in contact with Notion to get the help you need.
You've got an online forum.
You've got an online support center.
You can just give them a call.
In our experience, we had a number of questions for Notion.
We wrote them an email, essentially.
They got back to us within two hours which we thought was really impressive because we
did have some questions about various things.
They got right back to us.
We also want to know what are other people saying about Notion.
It is a newer company.
There are a few Amazon reviews out there.
We actually just found three reviews that specifically mentioned customer service.
Two of those three were positive.
We don't think that's necessarily a great representation of how the company will fair
in the future related to customer support.
We do want to mention that, overall, in Amazon, they got 4.1 out of 5 stars.
Of course, we had a positive experience, but we can't speak too much on a more general
customer support experience when it comes to the Notion Security System.
Let's move on to the mobile application with the Notion Security System.
What you want out of a mobile app is two-fold.
You want it to help facilitate the installation process of each of the components of your
system and also be an intuitive way to control your system.
In my experience, Notion does both of those things.
When you're adding a sensor to your system, you do it all right there in the app.
You designate what you want it to focus on.
It was really solid in terms of an experience because it was seamless.
I was done with the installation process quickly.
Then when it comes to actually looking at things in the app, I also found it to be pretty
intuitive, maybe not the most intuitive app I've used, but I definitely was ready to go
instantaneously.
Those are my experiences.
Let's look at what other people were thinking in the Google Play Store and the Apple App
Store, beginning with what I was using, an iPhone.
iPhone users gave it a 4.2 out of 5-star rating in the App Store, which is really solid.
It's actually pretty solid in the Google Play Store with a 3.5 out of 5-star rating.
That is significantly less, and so we looked into why that was.
It's because a lot of Android users complained about the app crashing on their phones.
That's really problematic.
You need to be able to see what's going on in your home security system, especially a
system like Notion that relies on self-monitoring.
However, one thing that we noted that was a very positive sign was that Notion had responded
to each one of these customer reviews' relationship to the app crashing.
That's what you want to see from a home security company is they're really on the ball responding
to their customers' concerns.
Now that we know how I feel about the app and what others feel about the app, let's
look at the Notion mobile application on my iPhone.
Let's look at the Notion mobile application.
If you note on the home page, you get all your sensors right there, obvious.
I have three sensors set up.
Those are the three sensors I got in my starter kit.
We've got the entrance sensor which, for me, is on a window.
For that window, I wanted to know what was the temperature, whether or not there was
a water leak, and whether or not the window is open or closed.
Here, you can get all that information right there.
That's impressive, because basically you assign task to each of your sensors with the Notion
Security System.
For two of my devices, I just have temperature or whether or not the door is open.
For that one, I was like, "Let's go a little bit deeper."
I want to know if water is getting into my place or if the window is open.
I just want to know what the temperature would be there.
I can go in and look at the task details.
You can check whether or not you are let known about something, a temperature above or below,
which is really useful.
You can send alerts when home, send alerts when away, send alerts at night.
I want to take off, for example, the send alerts when home because I can just look when
I'm at home and know what's going on, but I do want to get those alerts when I'm away,
or even at night.
If I go to the door app, you see here are my task details.
I can check out the task details or look at how things have been going on with my app.
For the purposes of shooting sometimes, we connect and disconnect the app, but you can
get an idea of how well it works and functions just from what happened today and earlier
this week.
If I were to tap on the account button below that, it would give me details on my account
with Notion, or I can go to system.
System has a little bit more, your general info.
I named the system the Baron Zone, located in Brooklyn.
Then I can go to sensors on the top, tells me the signal strength.
Once again, the bridge covers 1,800 squares feet.
We have far fewer than that right here.
Then we have the bridges.
I've only got one bridge attached.
You can see that it's connected.
If I wanted to add a bridge, I'd tap on Add A Bridge at the bottom.
Going to my settings.
One, what are the network outage notifications, and when is it nighttime?
To the right of that, you have your various integrations.
Finally, you can go into support.
Support, you have frequently asked questions, general feedback.
You can say if something isn't working.
There's even an open-source link.
To go back to that home page, you'll note that the Notion Security System has a lot
of functionality in terms of letting you know what's going on in your home.
You can assign various tasks to each of your sensors.
That's useful for getting a complete picture of your home environment.
That's me checking out the Notion Security System mobile application
Now that we've thoroughly reviewed every element of the Notion Security System, let's talk
the pros and cons.
It is a aesthetically-pleasing home security system that has the functionality to back
it up.
You get heat, motion, glass break, entry detection from this really beautiful sensor.
Those are things you're not going to get from an entire home security system, let alone
just one sensor.
On top of that, you get integrations with IFTTT and Nest.
In terms of the functionality of the Notion system, that's really beautiful.
Some of the cons is that it doesn't have professional monitoring.
It doesn't have that cellular backup that we've come to expect from our home security
systems.
It doesn't have a video component that integrates into the mobile application.
That being said, my personal take is that I can probably learn to live with those things,
because in terms of getting a complete picture of the environment of my home, the comings
and goings, you're not going to beat the Notion Home Security System.
With this bridge and just a few sensors, I know exactly what's happening in my home with
the exception of actually seeing what's happening inside my home.
In that sense, I really, really like the Notion Home Security System.
[background music]
Gabe: That concludes our review of the Notion Starter Kit.
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As always, this is Gabe at Security Baron.
Be secure.