When your system sounds any burglary alarm, there’s a brief false alarm grace period. If you don’t cancel the alarm within this grace period, it will be handled by a SimpliSafe® Monitoring Agent. 

Once an Agent is handling your alarm, they will begin reviewing your Video Verification recordings and Smart Alarm Indoor Camera streams.

Note: If you cancel your alarm shortly after a Monitoring Agent has begun handling it, the Agent will also disregard the alarm. In these cases, you may not hear from our Monitoring Agents, either over the camera or via phone call.

If the Monitoring Agent sees someone on the premises, they’ll activate 2-way audio on the Smart Alarm Indoor Camera to speak with them. There are several common camera 2-way audio scenarios:

Scenario 1: Person on the premises claims to be an account holder, and has the correct the safe word

If the person on the premises says everything is OK, the Monitoring Agent will ask for the location’s safe word, in the same manner as they would with a Primary Contact over a phone call. The Agent will disregard the alarm if the safe word is correctly provided.

Scenario 2: Person on the premises claims to be an account holder, and gives an incorrect safe word

If the person on the premises gives a safe word that is incorrect, the Monitoring Agent will acknowledge receipt of the safe word and end the 2-way audio conversation. They will then proceed directly to request police assistance at the location of your system, as is common practice for handling incorrect safe words.

Scenario 3: Person on the premises claims to be an expected guest (house/pet-sitter, contractor/maintenance worker, etc.) and does not know the safeword

In this scenario, the Monitoring Agent will first ask for the person’s name, and who would expect them to be on the premises. The Monitoring Agent will then ask them to stay in view of the camera, mute the 2-way audio stream, and begin to call the location’s Primary Contacts. If the Primary Contacts are not reachable, the Monitoring Agent will proceed to request assistance from the police. The Agent will then inform the person camera-side of this result.

If the Primary Contacts are reached, one of three things will happen:

1. If the Primary Contact is expecting the person, and gives the correct safe word, the Monitoring Agent will disregard the alarm. Before fully clearing the alarm, the Agent will inform the person camera-side that the alarm has been disregarded.

2. If the Primary Contact gives the wrong safe word for any reason, the Monitoring Agent will request dispatch from the police immediately, and will NOT say anything further to the person camera-side.

3. If the Primary Contact does NOT think the person should be there, the Monitoring Agent will request dispatch from the police immediately, and will NOT say anything further to the person camera-side.

Scenario 4: Person appears to be an intruder

If the Monitoring Agent determines the person is an intruder (e.g. they are clearly brandishing weapons, destroying property, are unresponsive to initial Monitoring Agent questions, etc.), they’ll immediately request dispatch from police. The Monitoring Agent will tell the person on the premises to leave immediately, as well as that they are being recorded, and that police assistance has been requested. 

Will SimpliSafe® Monitoring Agents Respond This Way For All Types Of Alarms?

No, currently only burglary alarms include a new monitoring agent response plan with the intruder intervention service. This includes all alarms triggered by an Entry, Motion, or Glassbreak sensor, and any Panic button (on the keypad, keyfob, or standalone button) configured to the “Audible” setting.

For Panic alarms with an intruder intervention response, there is no false alarm grace period. You will need to cancel these alarms by giving a monitoring agent your safeword, either over the phone or via the Smart Alarm Indoor Camera. For other types of alarms, SimpliSafe® monitoring agents will have access to the Smart Alarm Indoor Camera livestreams, but at this time are not trained to leverage the camera’s 2-way audio in the handling of these alarms.

Does SimpliSafe® Respond Differently Based On My System’s Armed State During Alarms?

No, our response is the same regardless of whether the system is armed in AWAY, HOME, or OFF (in the case of Panic alarms) Mode.