Gabe Turner: What's up everybody?
This is Gabe at Security Baron.
Today, we're checking out two of the OG home security systems -- Frontpoint and Protect
America.
Let's put them head to head.
[music]
Gabe: Today, we're going to see who comes out victorious between Frontpoint and Protect
America as I look at the key similarities, key differences, system components, installation,
professional monitoring, customer support and mobile application.
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If you have a question about today's comparison, leave us a comment and I'll get back to you.
Let's begin with some of the key similarities between Frontpoint and Protect America.
For one, they both have DIY installation.
They each have solid customer support.
On the negative side, neither of them actually offers month-to-month contracting.
Let's talk about some of the key differences between Frontpoint and Protect America.
For one, Protect America's professional monitoring fee comes included with the system while for
Frontpoint, you will pay for that separately.
The inverse is true when it comes to cellular backup.
Frontpoint has cellular backup included and Protect America makes you pay.
Finally, the Frontpoint app reviews are actually quite high, whereas Protect America did not
do nearly as well.
I just want to make it clear that with both Frontpoint and Protect America you can get
a host of system components.
For the sake of today's comparison, I'm focusing on the core components of the hub, motion
sensors, entry sensors and indoor cameras.
Let's discuss the installation process for both Frontpoint and Protect America.
First of all, right off the bat, both are pretty simple.
With Frontpoint, it's essentially peel and stick.
You'll take all the pieces out of the box.
You'll peel off the stickers, and you'll just place them in the necessary parts of your
home, your windows, doors, the corner for your motion sensor.
Really, the only thing that took me any time at all was having to go and attach the various
Ethernets and whatnot to the camera and the hub.
Overall, I would say it took me a little bit over an hour to have my Frontpoint system
on and popping.
When it comes to Protect America, I should probably point something out.
Whereas it is do-it-yourself, you will be on the phone with a customer support rep.
In that sense, it's honestly the best of both worlds.
I spoke with someone named Tiffany on the phone at Protect America, and she guided me
through every step of the process.
I'm focusing today on the core components, but I'm more than certain she would have stayed
on the phone with me through the door lock process and everything like that.
She was really great.
When it comes to top system installation, because of that extra help with the customer
support on the phone, I'm actually going to give the nod to Protect America.
It was super simple to set up.
While I wasn't a huge fan of setting up that camera, because you need to be very precise
about where you put it because it has a very limited field view, the entire process of
setting up the Protect America system with the customer support was really seamless and
flawless.
They win, Protect America that is, for system installation.
A quick break.
Something I've been thinking about -- and I'm sorry I'm a lawyer, I split hairs -- is
it really do-it-yourself installation if you have to do it with a guided phone conversation
ala Protect America?
I'm just wondering, what are your thoughts on do-it-yourself?
Is it truly do-it-yourself if you need to be on the phone with somebody?
Let's get back to the video.
Now that we've discussed actually installing your system and you got it up and running,
let's talk about the professional monitoring options for both Frontpoint and Protect America.
With Frontpoint, you pay separately for professional monitoring.
You have to also think about what comes included with that in terms of features.
With Protect America, you actually have the professional monitoring included, but you
need to basically pay for something else to get the full range of features.
I point this out because if you're looking for a self-monitoring home security system,
I would probably look at a completely different system altogether.
I think that Frontpoint and Protect America, you really get the most out of them with professional
monitoring.
Let's look at the options with each one of those systems.
Frontpoint offers three plans for your home security system: the protect plan at $34.99
a month, the interactive plan at $44.99 a month, and the ultimate plan at $49.99 a month.
It seems a little spendy, but honestly Protect America is not much better with their plans
ranging between $20 and $60 a month for the full range of features.
What do I mean by that?
With Frontpoint, that $44.99 a month plan is the only plan that gives you night vision,
live streaming, video and image history and control of your lights and smart locks, which
I honestly consider most of those pretty essential parts of any professional monitoring plan.
I'm a little bit peeved that it costs $50 to be able to use all of those with your home
security system.
With Protect America, I can't give you a full price on how all of those work.
It's because, honestly, you can negotiate a bit.
Those prices aren't set in stone.
We would recommend that if you go with Protect America, you give them a call and try to negotiate
those prices a little bit.
The next part of the professional monitoring with Frontpoint and Protect America that I'd
like to go into are the contracts.
With Frontpoint, you have two options -- a one-year or a three-year term length, after
which, you can go on a month-to-month contract.
With Frontpoint, if you want to cancel before your period is done, you're going to have
to pay 80 percent of the remainder of the contract.
To be honest, it's even worse with Protect America, where you can just sign a binding
three-year contract, and that's it.
Honestly, you hate to see that at this level.
The final element I wanted to discuss with professional monitoring and the Frontpoint
and Protect America systems are moving policies.
They're both do-it-yourself installation systems.
Fortunately, neither requires you to pay a relocation fee.
Frontpoint will be as nice as to send you new adhesive and even check to make sure your
new home has a cellular signal.
Protect America, of course, will go through that process on the phone of setting up the
system again and send you a relocation key.
When it comes to the moving process of Frontpoint and Protect America, they're both really solid.
When choosing a top system for professional monitoring between Frontpoint and Protect
America it's a little bit hard, because mainly neither of them really knocks it out of the
park.
Neither gives you the option to self-monitor, and they don't have any month-to-month contracting,
each requiring you to sign a pretty lengthy commitment contract.
I would actually go with Protect America because you can negotiate with them on the phone and
possibly get the features you need for below $50.
Frontpoint starts at $34.99 a month.
Really, if you want to get the most out of your system, you're going to go with that
$50 package.
From a pricing and negotiation perspective, we're going to go with Protect America for
the top system for professional monitoring.
We've discussed the installation of professional monitoring options for Protect America and
Frontpoint.
what about getting the help you need when you need it the most, customer support?
Fortunately, they both do really well when it comes to customer support.
Protect America even has a live chat feature.
Each of them have different options to getting in touch like an online knowledge center or
emails to make sure you're always getting that assistance that you need.
From a sheer numerical perspective, you have four point one out of five in Google reviews
for Protect America, which is great.
But you have four point five out of five for Frontpoint, which is astonishing.
When it comes to the top system for customer support, we've got to go with Frontpoint.
Now that we've discussed customer support, let's jump into how most people will be interfacing
with their home security system, the mobile application.
Instead of being on the phone with customer support, you're going to be looking at your
system right there on your app.
There is a clear winner here, and that is Frontpoint.
Frontpoint gets four point one out of five stars in the Google Play Store and four point
five out of five stars in the App Store.
On the other hand, Protect America gets three point one out of five stars in the Google
Play Store and two point four out of five stars in the App Store.
A lot of those people were complaining about the mobile application not being able to properly
engage with the components of the Protect America system.
That's pretty problematic.
It makes it easiest for us to say that Frontpoint wins best mobile app.
Let's go ahead and do a recap of all the elements that we covered in our comparison of Frontpoint
and Protect America.
Installation -- here we give the nod to Protect America, but just slightly because we really
appreciated having that customer support rep on the phone through the entire DIY installation
process.
Professional monitoring -- Protect America gets the nod here, because you can generally
negotiate on what you want out of your system.
Customer support -- Frontpoint wins the crown despite both Protect America and Frontpoint
having good support.
Frontpoint goes above and beyond its customers' expectations.
Mobile app -- Frontpoint wins in a landslide with its higher ratings in both the Google
Play and Apple App Store.
Like the finale of "American Idol," here's the point you've all been waiting for.
You're like, "Gabe, just tell me.
Which between Protect America and Frontpoint should I choose?"
You've seen that Protect America gets the slight nod when it comes to installation and
professional monitoring, and Frontpoint wins when it comes to customer support and clearly
when it comes to mobile application.
Which one is right?
Is it a tie?
I know you hate that.
It is a tie in a sense.
If we had to guess what you would like in the long term in terms of customer experience,
we'd probably say Frontpoint.
Frontpoint's customer reviews are above and beyond anything else that we've ever seen.
You have to remember that you're going to be spending a lot of the time, at least most
of you, working with your home security system in your mobile application.
Based on those two elements of our review system, you might want to go with Frontpoint
over Protect America.
That concludes our comparison of Frontpoint and Protect America.
If you appreciate today's video, give us a like and maybe hit that subscribe button.
As always, this is Gabe at Security Baron.
Be secure.