Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This system (and the outdated versions still sold elsewhere on Amazon) is awful in numerous ways: 1. The company does not provide the monitoring: they give your personal data (and real-time access to monitoring in your home) to third parties that are unnamed. When these small third party companies with limited funds to spend on data security get hacked, SimpliSafe can just avoid responsibility by saying it's not their fault. I don't want a security company whose business model is to deny responsibility for the security of extremely personal information. 2. The app for the system costs $120/year, and it doesn't work. They deceptively say in the product information that the service cost is only $14.95/month, but they omit the fact that they want to charge $10/mo in addition for the app. A nearly 70% additional charge just for the app!! And if you check the app reviews, it's abysmal. The app is completely unreliable in arming and disarming the system or connecting remotely to check on status. I don't pay anything for the app that lets me check on my Nest thermostat or Nest smoke/CO detectors. And yet after taking your $15/mo. they want even more for an app that doesn't work. 3. The company claims on their website that they have "40,000 5-star reviews on Amazon." This is highly dishonest. None of their kits on Amazon is highly rated. Their kit with the most reviews (just in the range of 5,000) has a 3-star average and thousands of critical reviews. 4. They state in their advertising that adding the camera is important because the police will respond more quickly if the presence of an intruder is confirmed by video. However, they do not provide any guarantees about the use of the live and recorded video from inside your home. There is nothing guaranteed about who can access that video and how long they keep it. They limit your access to 30 days, but they do give no guarantee about keeping that 24/7 recording of the inside of your house private. 5. The primary communication to their service is via cell phone. They don't state which service provider they use, and I've never lived anywhere that has a good signal from all carriers. I get spotty voice quality from AT+T where I live, so not having an option to connect this to a land line is a serious limitation. 6. The sensors for windows, motion, etc. are just off-the-shelf parts. There is no innovation here in the accuracy or reliability or other functionality of the sensors themselves. The concerns above about the service are the heart of the issue. You can buy these sensors and a base station from any number of companies, so it comes down to the cost, reliability, and privacy of the service. These guys aren't even providing the service: they are just outsourcing it to someone else unnamed, so who knows what your actually buying here.