Reached my breaking point with SimpliSafe

About 3-4 weeks ago, I spent two hours on a Saturday troubleshooting a base station that would not connect to WiFi. The keypads said they were connected, but when I opened the SimpliSafe app, it said the base station could not connect -- it couldn't even list nearby networks, I had to manually enter the network name and password. I found lots of helpful tips and troubleshooting online, and after a post on this very forum, was directed by a SimpliSafe employee to contact the support team.

I did so, and via an online text chat, was walked through pretty much the exact same troubleshooting steps I had already tried. I was then instructed to call, where I spent another 45 minutes on the phone performing the exact same troubleshooting steps. This was finally escalated to technical support I guess, where they finally agreed, something is wrong with your base station, and we're sending you a new one.

I want to make clear the extent of the troubleshooting I did on my own, and with SimpliSafe support:

• Re-entered the WiFi info
• Unplug the base station, remove a battery, wait 3 minutes, re-add the battery, plug back in. I was also instructed to try these similar exercises:
  • Remove all batteries
  • Try to connect on battery power only
  • Try to connect without batteries
• Move the base station closer to the router -- it is now ~2 feet away
• Double-check that my WiFi network is 2.4Ghz
• Try a password with no special characters
• Ensured my password is under 32 characters
• Try a dedicated guest network just for the base station
• Plug the base station into a different power outlet
  • Given the issue at hand, this is about the dumbest troubleshooting advice I've ever heard

After every single troubleshooting attempt, I had to re-type in my WiFi network name and password via the keypad, only for the tech to tell me "Yeah we don't see your base station on our end".

Luckily, SimpliSafe mailed out a new base station pretty quickly, and I was able to swap it out and re-add all my devices within an hour -- super easy.

It only took about 2 days to encounter my first problem -- one of my motion sensors just stopped being detected by the system. Easy enough fix, I just removed and re-added with no problem. Then it happened again. And again. And again. So, I just ended up removing that sensor entirely. Never had a problem with it until I got this new base station. For what it's worth, I have a 2nd motion sensor -- the same era/gen as the other -- and it has been working fine this entire time.

Minus the motion sensor issue, I've been cruising along for the last few weeks -- until today. I was awakened at 5AM by that stupid SimpliSafe "do-do-do" sound indicating a system problem. I opened up the SimpliSafe app from the comfort of my bed thinking, "Great, another device stopped working", only to be met with the dreaded "Unable to get settings from your Base Station. Check your Base Station or try again." error.

Sure enough, I checked the WiFi settings, and there's a big old error indicator next to my WiFi name. I select it, and sure enough, again, it can't even list the nearby networks. So I manually enter my WiFi name and password (for like the 50th time over the past month), and it says "Something went wrong with our servers. Please try again".

I drag myself out of bed, and re-enter the WiFi info from one of my keypads -- it says it is connected successfully. I open the SimpliSafe app and....the base station can't connect. So I did what I had done 10+ times before, and disconnected the base station, popped a battery, left it for 3 minutes, before plugging it all back in and....the base station can't connect.

So here I am, typing this post with that annoying sound playing every 10 seconds in the background. The only way I can get it to shut up is to just completely disconnect the base station from power and take out a battery, rendering the whole thing pretty dang useless.

So at this point, I am done with this system. I would rather switch to a completely different brand than go through this nightmare troubleshooting again. I have a ton of devices:

• The computer on which I am typing this post
• A laptop
• A work laptop
• 2 smart TVs
• A Sony PS4
• A Nintendo Switch
• A smart phone
• 2 Ring cameras

That can all connect to WiFi. I've had two SimpliSafe base stations that will not connect. It was working fine for weeks -- what changed? Aside from creating a new guest network to troubleshoot a SimpliSafe issue, I haven't touched my router or network settings since I moved in 3 years ago. We put men on the moon in 1969 and brought them back in one piece, and here I am, 50+ years later and I'm banging my head against the wall -- for a second time -- to get a device to connect to a WiFi network.

If I could be provided a return label, I will gladly ship my system back -- it's basically a $300 paperweight and I don't want to just throw it in the garbage, although that is probably the most appropriate spot for it.