SimpliSafe Video Doorbell Pro Review

A Look at Design

If you know anything about doorbell cameras, then you probably know Ring. Doorbell cameras from that company have become iconic in recent years for their sleek look, but Ring doesn’t have a monopoly on stylish design. With its white color and capsule shape, the Video Doorbell Pro looks great. Check out our SimpliSafe vs. Ring guide for a complete comparison between these two DIY providers.

With its sleek design, we had no problem installing ours on our metal door frame. It blended right in, but we’ve also seen it look great on wood and other materials. An eye-catching design can also be a good low-key deterrent for would-be porch pirates.

Just because the Video Doorbell Pro looks pretty, that doesn’t mean it isn’t tough as well. The camera we installed withstood a torrential downpour and kept a steady video feed the whole time. It can tolerate a temperature range of 14 to 104 degrees Fahrenheit, which should be adequate for most people. If you live in the desert or a sub-Arctic region, you may want to go with another camera, especially because using the camera in extreme temperatures may void the warranty. That said, we find this temperature range works in all but the most extreme climates within the U.S.

Unlike some other video doorbells, SimpliSafe’s Video Doorbell Pro doesn’t run on batteries. You’ll need to hardwire it with an AC transformer between 8 and 24 volts. That’s the same voltage as most standard doorbells so it can directly replace your current doorbell if you have one.The downside is that if there’s a power outage, the video doorbell will go offline.

For a doorbell that can work 24/7, with or without power, see our Nest Doorbell Battery review. It’s a great alternative to the SimpliSafe doorbell, especially since it works with ADT security systems (currently holding the top spot of the best home security brands). We dig into all the differences between these two as security systems in our SimpliSafe vs ADT comparison.

But we digress; if you want to go with SimpliSafe’s doorbell but don’t have the right wiring setup in place, you have a couple of options. First, you can buy an adaptor for your wiring setup, but you’ll need to figure out which one you need. The second option is to plug the doorbell directly to a wall outlet using an adapter. This is what we’d recommend unless you’re getting your SimpliSafe system professionally installed as picking the right adapter to wire it directly can get confusing. Unfortunately, for both adapters, you’d need to buy them through a third-party making it even more confusing.

Hooking up the SimpliSafe Video Doorbell Pro

You’re probably wondering why SimpliSafe didn’t just make a battery-powered doorbell, especially since those are commonplace now in the home security scene. Ring, one of the best video doorbell brands right now, recently launched the Battery Doorbell Plus and Battery Doorbell Pro. They have advanced features, superb video quality, and (you guessed it!) a battery that powers them.

Well, SimpliSafe opted for a hardwired design so users could install it once and then never maintain it. Battery-powered doorbells need to be charged and if a user fails to charge it, they can be nonoperational for extended periods of time. Forgetting to charge your phone is no big deal, but when it comes to your home’s security, forgetting to charge your doorbell’s battery can leave your home vulnerable. That’s why we don’t think the hardwired design on the Video Doorbell Pro is a bad thing. Plus, it only took us about fifteen minutes to install.

Here’s how we installed the SimpliSafe Video Doorbell Pro.

1. Before touching any wires, we turned off our home’s main electrical switch. This is an important safety step. Then, we removed our existing doorbell.
2. Next, we hardwired the doorbell to our existing doorbell setup. To do that, we followed the step-by-step instructions clearly written in the manual. There were even pictures to follow for visualizations. If we needed more help, we could head over to SimpliSafe’s website for a video guide on installing it, but we found the manual provided enough information for us.
3. After hooking up the doorbell, we turned the power back on and waited for the doorbell to boot up.
4. While we waited for the doorbell’s indicator light to turn on, we downloaded the SimpliSafe app and initiated the Wi-Fi pairing process. That way, once the doorbell finished booting up, we were ready to connect it to our system. The app told us exactly what to do.

Now, setting up a wired video doorbell isn’t for everybody. It’s easy if you have experience and if your home’s wiring is up to spec, but you’d still need technical know-how. Safety always comes first, so if you’re not confident you can do it, we recommend professional installation. SimpliSafe offers that starting at $125. A tad expensive, but given how popular doorbell cameras are these days, you can find a local technician to do the job for less than what SimpliSafe charges. A local electrician or handyman will be able to handle the job with ease.

Despite the slightly more complex setup process, the SimpliSafe Video Doorbell Pro is in line with SimpliSafe’s goal of simple home security. We say that because of how easy it is to use on the day-to-day which we’ll get into in a bit. But once you pass the hurdle of installing the Video Doorbell Pro, using it couldn’t be simpler.

SimpliSafe Video Doorbell Pro on the Daily

We initially tested the SimpliSafe Video Doorbell Pro alongside a SimpliSafe security system. It’s one of the components we mentioned in our SimpliSafe review. And what we liked about the integration was that it allowed the doorbell to record any time one of our SimpliSafe sensors was triggered. That’s one of the advantages of a doorbell camera that works directly with a security system. We’ll cover more of them shortly.

That said, we found the SimpliSafe Video Doorbell Pro could improve the security of our home on its own too. It actually covers all the basics, from crisp videos to clear audio, as well as advanced detection of security threats. Let’s go through them one by one.

• Video: As we said, 1080p is the standard among security cameras and video doorbells. The SimpliSafe Video Doorbell Pro has HDR as well, so the footage looked better lighting-wise. That’s why we could still see the face of visitors even when the afternoon sun was shining directly on our camera lens. Plus, with the pan and zoom feature, we pinned down the smallest details. Finally, the 162-degree field of view gave us a wider vision of our street, which is usually jam-packed with cars and people.

• Audio: Two-way audio is vital to any video doorbell. It means you can hear the person at your front door, and you can talk to them through the doorbell’s speakers. Basically, two-way talk allows video doorbells to function as intercoms, and we can confidently say that this feature came in handy often during our testing period.
• Night vision: SimpliSafe uses infrared night vision. It doesn’t emit blinding white lights to see at night; instead it uses invisible infrared lights from IR LEDs. That helps keep the video doorbell inconspicuous, while also providing clear nighttime videos. We also found that it’s not prone to glare – our chief editor was wearing glasses but there was minimal glare coming from them. That’s once again thanks to its HDR feature.

• Storage: Recording is also a vital camera feature, but SimpliSafe lacks free cloud or local storage. That’s bad news if you’re hoping to use the doorbell camera without monthly fees. Thankfully, SimpliSafe’s pricing for cloud storage isn’t bad. They offer one self-monitoring plan for $9.99 per month that includes cloud storage for up to 10 cameras. For comparison, when we tested Ring, we paid $10 per month for cloud storage too although they supported unlimited cameras
• Person detection: Suffice to say, we love video doorbells that have artificial intelligence. We don’t want to be bombarded by useless notifications alerting us of cars passing or neighborhood cats strolling by. SimpliSafe uses two methods to distinguish person movement; it has a PIR motion sensor that detects heat signatures and computer vision that can identify human forms within the frame. Those definitely came in handy in reducing the false alerts we received.

Monitoring & Storage Breakdown

As mentioned earlier, SimpliSafe offers a self-monitoring plan with video storage that costs $10 per month and supports up to 10 cameras. Well, you could also use the video doorbell without a cloud plan and monthly fees. However, with this, the doorbell won’t record. That means you’ll need to immediately pull up the live feed for every alert if you have any hope of catching an intruder or package thief in the act.

Compared to other video doorbells we’ve tested, SimpliSafe’s cloud plan pricing is a tad higher. Ring, for example, offers cloud storage for any one Ring camera for $4.99 per month or unlimited cameras for $10 per month. Plus, they store event recordings for 180 days as opposed to SimpliSafe’s 30 days of storage. Ring also gives discounts for annual plans with two free months. With SimpliSafe, only monthly plans are available.

Can The SimpliSafe Video Doorbell Pro Be Monitored?

Now, this is something most other video doorbells don’t offer. We actually don’t talk about monitoring much when we review doorbell cameras. Most professional monitoring plans only use a system’s sensors. But, SimpliSafe uses the cameras in your system for their monitoring too.

It all started when it launched the Fast Protect monitoring plan in 2022. With it, SimpliSafe monitored our Smart Alarm indoor camera, allowing its agents to see the camera’s live feed and speak through its speakers during emergencies. This also enabled video-verified alarms which allowed for a faster response time from emergency personnel. The only requirements are that you have a SimpliSafe security system with the Smart Alarm camera and pay for the Fast Protect (now called Core) plan. It currently costs $31.99 per month.

That subscription doesn’t affect the doorbell camera though, but the two new SimpliSafe monitoring plans do. They are called Pro and Pro Plus, and both come with Active Guard Outdoor Protection, among premium monitoring features such as Fast Protect.

Active Guard Outdoor Protection brings similar features as Fast Protect but to up to three outdoor cameras – the Video Doorbell Pro included. As soon as someone trespasses into your property, SimpliSafe agents would be able to see and speak with them. It identifies trespassers with the Outdoor Camera Pro’s AI computer vision which is why the plan requires at least one second-generation Outdoor Camera Pro in your system. If you meet those requirements, the Active Guard will be activated for your doorbell camera as well.

Here’s the pricing breakdown:

Are There Local Video Storage Options?

The simple answer is “no.” SimpliSafe won’t store videos locally; it relies on cloud storage. What’s more, SimpliSafe doesn’t offer free cloud storage. So when we used it as a standalone device, we needed to sign up for the $9.99 per month self-monitoring plan with cloud storage. That’s pretty expensive. On top of that, videos are sent to the cloud so we needed to test our internet speeds and make sure it supported an upload speed of at least 2 Mbps.

On the bright side, though, videos stored in the cloud are safer from tampering than videos stored on location. Let’s say you’re using the Wyze Video Doorbell, which uses a microSD card for storage. Video doorbells are placed outdoors, which means a wise thief could disconnect the microSD card or rip the doorbell off the wall to stop it from recording. You’d have no video evidence left if they do that. With SimpliSafe, though, recordings are uploaded in real-time. Whatever happens to the doorbell, your videos are safely stored somewhere else.

SimpliSafe Customer Support

We dread contacting customer support for any reason, but connecting with SimpliSafe representatives wasn’t as bad as we thought. The company offers phone support, forums, email contact forms, user manuals, and a help center. Navigating around SimpliSafe’s help center was a bit confusing so we ended up going to Google and clicking through to their help center to find the information we needed.

The company offers phone support, forums, email contact forms, user manuals, and a help center. All of these provided useful information. A quick Google search also helped us navigate around SimpliSafe’s website with links that directed us to its support pages.

Even with SimpliSafe’s help center, we still needed to call their customer service one evening when our app wasn’t livestreaming footage. It was after business hours, but thankfully, SimpliSafe offers extended hours until midnight EST for customer support calls.

The representative we spoke to, Dave, answered our questions. Dave clarified that if the LED color was yellow, it meant that a firmware update was in progress. That’s why it couldn’t livestream footage at the time. He communicated patiently and didn’t sound the least bit tired during our 11:15 PM phone call.

While it took some time to get connected with Dave, we were satisfied overall with our experience.

SimpliSafe Home Security App Experience

Recent data reports indicate that people use mobile apps 90 percent of the time over mobile sites,2 so it’s no surprise that many home security brands have created their own mobile apps to complement their products. And SimpliSafe is no exception.

As soon as we pulled up the SimpliSafe Home Security app, we saw live footage of our front porch. While there was a little bit of lag, we panned and zoomed in, and the video quality remained crisp. There were two simple features with the live video: record and microphone. We recorded and saved our footage to the event history to review later. As for the microphone, we just had to tap on the little icon to speak to any visitors or delivery folks at our front door. We learned that we needed to let go of the microphone button when we were done talking if we wanted to hear a response from our visitor.

One little qualm we have with the app was that it wasn’t very robust. There were very few settings we could play with, although we were able to adjust the motion detection sensitivity, check the Wi-Fi signal on our video doorbell, and adjust a few other settings.

On the bright side, it was the same app we used to control and access our SimpliSafe home security system. It certainly made it easier to manage our home security.

Video Review

Need a visual of our experience with the SimpliSafe Video Doorbell Pro? Check out our SimpliSafe Video Doorbell Pro video review below.