SimpliSafe and Roku or ApplyTV or Amazon

@brastifard SimpliSafe uses a closed system so we can ensure quality and keep your system truly secure. With our commitment to keeping your data and videos private, we don't want to share this information with third parties. Right now, the ability to stream your camera footage on smart screens is not in development. 

All,

Ok, this is a long post so please be patient. If you're not, the TL;DR of this post boils down to Emily's claim about not wanting to share our data and videos with third parties is patiently false as you can plainly see in the information that SimpliSafe itself provides when listing its policies.

@emily_s specifically,

With our commitment to keeping your data and videos private, we don't want to share this information with third parties.

First, I'm confident most people would be thrilled if you offered a SimpliSafe app for Roku that only did the following:

- Allowed for live streaming only (no access to recordings or account data)

- If possible, generated an alert on the screen when when using Roku (regardless of app) when someone rang the video doorbell pro so you could fast switch to it

Second, you allow customers today right now to access camera feeds, recordings, data and account info from literally any iOS or Android device (including Android TV devices that can access the Google Play Store) on the planet. You also allow customers today right now to access camera feeds, data and account info from any supported browser on any PC or Mac on the planet. How is a SimpliSafe app running on the Roku platform less secure than the other ways in which customers access your mobile app, website, etc? It's not as if Roku requires apps on its platform to route through their network or to give Roku special access. 

Third, according to the terms of service at https://simplisafe.com/terms-of-service and section 29 specifically you already allow us to choose to interface our SimpliSafe system with third parties:

From time to time, SimpliSafe may provide the opportunity for you to interface the SimpliSafe System, Services, Application, Account, website or other SimpliSafe product, service, functionality or service element (collectively, the “SimpliSafe Platform”) to one or more third-party products, services or applications 

Further in section 29 you also make it clear that once we agree to a third party product and service we also agree that you may exchange our personal information and that once you have shared the data with a third party then its use is governed by their policies and not yours (

your consent and authorization to the corresponding/underlying Third-Party Products and Services, related interfaces and data exchange may be deemed to have been provided. Once your consent is given for a particular Third-Party Product and Service, you agree that SimpliSafe may exchange information and control data regarding you and your products, including your personal information, in order to enable the interface to the Third-Party Products and Services you have authorized. Once this information is shared with the particular Third-Party Product and Service, its use will be governed by the third party's privacy policy and not by SimpliSafe’s Privacy Policy. You acknowledge and agree that SimpliSafe makes no representation or warranty about the quality or safety of any Third-Party Products or Services or the interface with Product and Services and that the use or performance of the Third-Party Products or Services shall be subject to the third party’s terms of service or like terms.

Further in section 29 still you also make it clear that if we choose to interface with third party products and services that you allow us to access we also agree that you are in no way responsible for any issues that arise from our use of said third party products and services.

Accordingly, SimpliSafe is not responsible for your use of any Third-Party Product or Service or any personal injury, death, property damage (including, without limitation, to your home), or other harm or losses arising from or relating to your use of any Third-Party Products or Services. You should contact the third party with any questions about their Third-Party Products and Services.

So in just the terms of service it's clear that you already allow us to interface with third parties if we choose to enable that functionality, that you may give our data to those third parties and that we agree you cannot be held responsible for any damage, loss or harm we experience as a result of interfacing with those third parties. 

So there's literally precedent and legal disclaimers for the thing we're asking you to do (create a Roku app) that you say you can't do because you don't allow that sort of thing. Do you see where this is frustrating to us as customers?

Oh and I almost forgot the privacy policy at https://simplisafe.com/privacy-policy which further clearly and explicitly confirms that you share some data you collect about a) anyone who visits your site and b) your customers with third parties. This document clearly states that the types of data you might share about your customers with third parties include:

• Identifiers (such as your email, phone number, address, device usage information and information about your household. We additionally may collect contact information of users’ family and friends for alarm notification purposes or for our “Tell-A-Friend” program)
• Commercial information (such as your purchase history and information about your product usage)
• Financial Information (SimpliSafe partners with Chase Bank for processing credit or debit payments that you initiate onsite and we will only store the last 4 digits of your payment card and expiration date)
• Internet or other electronic network activity (such as information about your and your devices’ interaction with our network, your interaction with our Site and App, your visitor identification number, your product usage, the website you navigated from to reach our site, timestamp information about your visit to our site, the pages on our site that you view, including pages visited, your mouse movement and keystrokes for evaluating site functionality, and the name of your internet service provider)
• Audio, visual and similar information (if you use our security cameras or other camera-enabled products, we collect information such as audio and video recordings from such devices so that we can provide the guaranteed services)
• Inferences (such as a profile based on information reflecting your activity and preferences)
• Geolocation Information (as necessary to utilize Bluetooth and Wifi functionality of our products and services. Precise geolocation is only collected in a one-time fashion in order to enable Wifi capabilities, other instances of Geolocation collection are coarse)
• Sensitive Personal Information (combination of email address and password, or other credentials, such as safeword, allowing access to your account; and protected classification characteristics, if you voluntarily provide them in response to our surveys, such as your race and ethnicity)

It also clearly states that third parties you might share this information with include:

• Third-party service providers that help us process orders and fulfill and deliver products and services that you purchase from us. If you choose to enable account connections or integrations with third-party products such as SimpliSafe’s Amazon Alexa Skill, Apple Watch or Google Assistant, we may share your information with such third-party products. This is only done with your consent, and you can revoke or disable these connections and integrations at any time

• If you subscribe to our monitoring or emergency dispatch services, we disclose your information to third parties to facilitate those services

• We use third parties to host our Site, send out email updates about the Site, provide marketing and advertising services for us, remove repetitive information from our user lists, and process payments

• Third parties that conduct research surveys, focus groups and promote contests

• Our service providers, such as our website and cloud hosting providers

• Partners such as AARP and Farmer’s Insurance when you have utilized discounts and promotions that those groups make available

• If you request system setup assistance, we disclose your information to third parties to assist you with setup services

• For the avoidance of doubt, we do not sell or share your information for marketing purposes when that information was obtained through short code messaging.

So you literally have sections called "sensitive personal information" and "Audio, visual and similar information" that your privacy policy explicitly allows you to share with others yet your first reply in this thread says you don't do that. 

I think we deserve a better answer as to why you can't provide specific functionality we're asking for. (For, what feels like, the 100th time by the way.) If it's too hard or you all just don't want to, just say so. I'd rather hear an honest response than a response that I can provide is false in 30 seconds on your own website.

Bump

I too am frustrated by this, and agree that being able to stream our SimpliSafe cameras to a TV in the house would be a huge benefit.  I have an elderly family member who is not tech savvy, so would not be able to go through the current phone login requirements to check cameras, so when someone comes knocking at the door, she simply ignores it.  If I could set up our mainfloor TV to stream our video feeds, she'd have an immediate view of who's at the door or in the driveway, and if it's someone she knows/trusts, she could answer.  As others who want this capability with SimpliSafe have reported on this and other forums, Roku's venture into the home camera/security business is getting mighty tempting for me.  I do like SimpliSafe otherwise, but I may be at a crossroads with them for a failure to take their platform to the next logical (and highly desirable) step.