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Thursday, May 13th, 2021 3:30 PM

Police called during installation - Not Pleased

Hi, I am a long time SS customer.  

Today I upgraded from the SS Original system to the Gen3 system.  

During the morning I took down all my Original system sensors and replaced them with the Gen 3 sensors.  Then I did a few tests to see that everything was working.  I purposely tripped the water sensor, then I armed the system and opened a door.  I let the timer count down to hear how loud the siren was and just to make sure everything worked as it should.  No problems so far.

I took a break for a few hours and then called SS to have my monitoring changed from the Original system to the new Gen 3 system.  That's where the wheels fell off the bus.

While I was on line with the CS rep to have the account changed over I got a call from SS.  I hurried off the CS call and answered the incoming call.  The rep told me that he received a water leak alert.  I explained that I set that off hours ago.  While we were talking I receive a SECOND incoming call from SS.  I couldn't get off the phone quick enough and the second call went to VM.

Once I got off the first call I listened to my VM and sure enough, SS was calling about the entry sensor alarm from several hours earlier and they had CALLED THE POLICE !!

Fortunately they were able to cancel the Police call.

This has got to be some kind of software bug.  There is no way that events that happen well before monitoring is active should be sent to the monitoring center when monitoring is activated.

Please look into this and correct it for future users.

Thank you.

Community Admin

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5.7K Messages

3 years ago

Sorry about this, stevenkbone.

To clarify, if you're upgrading from Gen 2 to Gen 3, the process on our end is very similar to a Base Station replacement. That is, we would simply replace the serial of your old Base Station with the new one - so Monitoring is listening for signals from the new Base only.
That means that your Monitoring Service remains intact and fully active. Any alarm signals that come through would go through the standard alarm dispatch sequence.

Our representative should have made that clear! Over the phone, we can also put your system into a Test Mode with the Monitoring Service, so that you can test for full alarms without Dispatch getting involved.

- Johnny M.
SimpliSafe Home Security

5 Messages

Johnny M.

Thanks for your prompt reply.

I accept that this is the default behavior, but I think it is a TERRIBLE design.  Imagine if somebody had a system for 1 year w/o the monitoring service, then decided to get monitoring.  Every event for the past year would cause a call for Police ??  Heck, a SWAT team would arrive !!

Surely the design should be changed such that any time a base station is added to a new monitoring account, past events should be either cleared out, or at least not referred to monitoring for a Police call.

Also, I will pass along to you that I called customer service twice (once after each call from Monitoring).  I spoke to a different CSR each time, and neither of them had any idea of what I was talking about, or how such a thing could happen.

OK, nuff said...

Captain

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6.1K Messages

3 years ago

A SOP for me when I am working or testing my system bimonthly: I put system in test mode, and when I get the call with  recording I trf to a live COPS agent and tell them to put the entire system in test for x time (usually an hour). Yeah, I am tying up one of their agents for about 3 minutes six times a year but it avoids issues. An hour is plenty of time for me to clean my smoke and CO sensors, test what I want etc.

Community Admin

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5.7K Messages

3 years ago

@stevenkbone

Really the thing is that as far as the service side is concerned, the Monitoring Plan hasn't changed at all. The only thing that has changed is that there's a different Base Station reporting.

In theory, if you're only swapping out your Base Station, you wouldn't need a pause in dispatch, since you already know how to use the system. Same for if you're coming back from a long pause in service.
We do also have the Test Mode through the Keypad menu, that allows you to test all your sensors. But if you want to do a more thorough test with real sirens, that's what putting the Monitoring into Test Mode is for. We just need to have you on the phone to verbally confirm your Safe Word, since of course this impacts your system's ability to report to Monitoring and trigger dispatch.

- Johnny M.
SimpliSafe Home Security
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