88 Messages
SimpliSafe will not call police unless 2 sensors triggered within 10 minutes
I logged into my account in the web app and in the monitoring section at the bottom of the page is a link for if my municipality requires an alarm permit. There it states that my city will only respond to verified alarms. It further states that SimpliSafe will only call the police once 2 unique sensors are each triggered within 10 minutes of each other. They call this cross-zone monitoring. I had no idea this restriction was on my monitoring account. I checked my city’s municipal code regarding verified vs unverified (false) burglar alarms and it defines a verified alarm as 2 different zone sensors triggering with 5 minutes of each other. Why is SimpliSafe using 10 minutes instead of 5? By doing so they are reducing my own police department’s verified alarm response time. Can SimpliSafe change this to 5 minutes for my monitoring account?
BTW, it says they will still attempt to call you after the first sensor triggers an alarm. They just won’t call the police until 2 unique sensors trigger with 10 minutes of each other.
Official Solution
davey_d
Community Admin
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5.7K Messages
4 months ago
Hi @Boring_Joe ,
Yes, that's the Cross Zone requirement for false alarm reduction, set by many municipalities. After an alarm event is triggered, a second one from a different sensor needs to be triggered as well, before the local police department will allow a dispatch. This is to counteract false alarms caused by potentially malfunctioning sensors - because it's unlikely for a second one to trigger unless there's actually someone there setting them off.
Often, this requirement only applies to sensor triggers. If you had cameras with Video Verification enabled (which sends camera footage to the monitoring operator, so they can actually see for themselves if there's an intruder), that would be a separate type of alarm.
But unfortunately since this is a sensitive legal matter, we're not able to comment here on the Community regarding the specifics for your location (we don't want to risk getting the answer wrong!). But I would suggest reaching out to our experts via permits@simplisafe.com.
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captain11
Captain
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6.2K Messages
4 months ago
@Boring_Joe Definitely an interesting question to raise and very interested in seeing Simplisafe's response.
Video recordings or live agent monitoring with the new SA cameras should qualify as "verification" and allow for immediate police dispatch that should override the process you describe.
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worthing
742 Messages
4 months ago
Hey @Boring_Joe can I ask a favor? Can you please copy and paste the text you found when you logged into the web interface and checked under monitoring? My area doesn't have the same requirement but I'm curious to see what, exactly, the text under the alarm permit requirements section says for you. Thanks!
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