Ring Alarm vs SimpliSafe

Here, we put the Ring Alarm system up against SimpliSafe in a Ring vs SimpliSafe showdown of these DIY home security systems.

We’ve followed Ring since it first appeared as a contestant on Shark Tank in 2013. We were disappointed when they didn’t walk away with a deal initially, but excited when Ring sold its first five million security systems and cameras following its rebrand. In 2018, Amazon purchased Ring, allowing them to grow even further. SimpliSafe, another smart security company we like, was started by two Harvard Business School students and quickly earned its place as one of the top dogs in the smart home security market.

We bought the Ring Alarm Security Kit from Ring and the Summerfort System (now called The Haven) from SimpliSafe. Both companies offered DIY installation, month-to-month contracting, and 24/7 professional monitoring. Which system came out on top? Keep reading to find out.

First, we compared the key similarities and differences between Ring and SimpliSafe. Then, we went through installation, professional monitoring, customer support, and the company’s respective mobile applications.

Key Similarities of Ring vs SimpliSafe

We discovered some key similarities from our assessment of the two companies.

• High app ratings: Both the Ring — Always Home app and the SimpliSafe app had high ratings, four stars or higher on iOS and Android.
• Month-to-month contracting and self-monitoring options: Neither Ring nor SimpliSafe forced us to sign long-term contracts or pay for professional monitoring.
• DIY or professional installation: We installed both systems ourselves, although both companies had professional installation options.

Key Differences of Ring Alarm vs SimpliSafe

We also considered how the two systems differed:

• System components: We noticed that while Ring had a pretty minimalist, five-part security system SimpliSafe’s system was about twice the size. Although Ring has expanded its product line, so you could build a comparable system with Ring.
• Customer support ratings: We looked at ratings for both systems and found that users had different things to say about SimpliSafe and Ring’s customer support systems.

Next, it was time to see what each system was made of.

System Components of Ring vs SimpliSafe

We bought the Ring Alarm Security Kit, which came with a base station, keypad, contact sensor, motion detector, and range extender. We already had the Ring Stick Up Cam Wired and the Ring Video Doorbell, so we used that with our security system. SimpliSafe’s was a bit more extensive and included a glass break sensor, panic button, key fobs, and a siren. We should note that SimpliSafe also offered a video doorbell, but the system we bought didn’t include it.

Installing Ring vs SimpliSafe

Like we said before, both the Ring and SimpliSafe systems required self-installation, unless we wanted to shell out $125 for a professional installer from SimpliSafe. Instead, we saved our money and opted for the DIY route with both systems.

Installing Ring Alarm

When we installed our Ring alarm, we learned the importance of syncing one component at a time.

Our installation took longer than it should have. We tried to sync all of our Ring components to the base station at once and that seemed to overwhelm the system. We’re not sure if it was our network connection or what, but we had to let our Ring system sync one component at a time.

Another thing we noted was that the contact sensors went on our doors and windows in the opposite way than we were used to. The larger part went on the door or window itself, while the smaller part went on the frame.

In a nutshell, we found following the video tutorials helpful with installing Ring. Using the tutorials, our installation process only took about 10 minutes.

>> Learn More: See our full Ring Alarm Review

Installing SimpliSafe

The SimpliSafe system was easy to install and didn’t require any drilling or special tools. The sensors themselves were peel-and-stick. It was the most idiot-proof installation type of all time, and the sensors felt very secure on the wall. Once we put up all our sensors, we only had to plug in our base station and sync our system to the SimpliSafe app.

A+ for installation, and professional installation, while nice, was probably not necessary.

>> Learn More: See our full SimpliSafe Home Security Review

Top System Installation

It was no contest — SimpliSafe was much easier to install than Ring. For a company that branded itself for its simplicity, this definitely tracked. We also loved that professional installation was an option, even though the system was easy enough to install ourselves.

>> Learn More: See our pick for the Best Professionally Installed Security Systems

Professional Monitoring with Ring Alarm vs SimpliSafe

With professional monitoring, a team of professionals oversaw our home’s security from its call center. If one of our alarms went off, a team member called to check-in, and, if necessary, contact emergency services for us. This was really helpful when we were away from the house or otherwise preoccupied when a potential security breach occurred.

>> Learn More: See full details on SimpliSafe pricing and monitoring options

Professional monitoring was the area where Ring and SimpliSafe differed the most. Both companies gave us the option to self-monitor or pay monthly. However, with SimpliSafe self-monitoring, we didn’t receive push notifications or remote control of our systems, which was a pretty big drawback.

SimpliSafe’s premium monitoring option, called Fast Protect, allows for video verification of incidents as well as two-way communication between SimpliSafe technicians and intruders. This is called Live Guard protection and it’s supported on the Smart Alarm Wireless Indoor Camera.

It also includes:

• Alerts for Flooding and Extreme Temperatures
• Video Incident Verification
• Cellular Backup
• Unlimited Camera Recording
• 30 Days Cloud Storage
• HD Live View
• Text Confirmation of Alarms
• Remote Arm and Disarm
• Arm System with Alexa, Google Assistant and Apple Watch
• Extended Warranty
• Discount on New Hardware Purchases

As far as costs go, SimpliSafe’s Fast Protect monitoring will run you $31.99 per month. Not bad in the scheme of things. You can also get their standard monitoring which only includes 24/7 professional monitoring for $21.99 per month.

Let’s look at Ring’s Monitoring, though. Their plan is called Pro, and it will only cost $20 per month. With it, you receive:

• Video History for up to 180 Days
• Snapshot Capture
• Person and Package Alerts
• Rich Notifications
• Remote Arming and Disarming
• Alarm Digital Notifications & Event History
• Discounts on New Products
• Advanced Video Features
• Enhanced Notifications
• Extended Warranties
• 24/7 Alarm Professional Monitoring
• Alarm Cellular Backup

Both of these monitoring packages offer similar features, but we’d say Ring slightly edges out SimpliSafe in terms of features and affordability. Although that two-way talk feature SimpliSafe offers is pretty innovative.

Custom Motion Detection

We learned that all Ring Plans had custom motion detection, which basically combined person detection and activity zones. Person detection was pretty self-explanatory — our Ring Stick Up Cam Wired or Ring Video Doorbell could tell the difference between people, pets, and inanimate moving objects like cars. That led to more specific and important notifications. We were so glad not to get a new notification every time our cat moved.

Next, we tried out activity zones. Activity zones let us divide the area we recorded into three parts while we focused specifically on one.

For example, if we had outdoor cameras, we could tell it to ignore the street. As a result, we didn’t receive tons of false alerts. SimpliCam from SimpliSafe recognized humans’ unique heat signatures, so it can tell the difference between humans and animals.

Secret Alarms

SimpliSafe’s Fast Protect Plan came with secret alarms. We’d never heard of this, so we had to look it up on the company’s website.2

Through our reading, we gathered that having a secret alarm meant we could be the only people in our homes aware that an alarm went off. Instead of having the alarm sound, a dead giveaway, we could silence the alarm and receive a mobile notification. We hadn’t seen this feature from any other security company, and we thought it could be useful for a liquor cabinet or safe.

Video-Verified Alarms

Another feature only available with the SimpliSafe Fast Protect Plan was video-verified alarms.

If someone triggered our alarm, professional monitors were notified immediately via a one-minute clip of security footage. If they saw a robbery happening in real-time, they alerted the police for us. Studies showed that video-verified alarms lead to higher arrest rates, according to SimpliSafe. Made sense to us!

It was no secret, SimpliSafe’s subscriptions were much more expensive than Ring’s, with its least expensive option coming in at about $5 more per month than Ring’s most expensive. When we considered that Ring had twice the amount of cloud storage, the price difference seemed even more stark.

Ring Alarm vs SimpliSafe Contracts

Hallelujah! We were ecstatic when we discovered that both SimpliSafe and Ring offered flexible month-to-month options rather than the binding three-year contracts some companies forced on customers. Ring did offer a one-year contract option which lowered the monthly cost slightly. Regardless of whichever contract we chose, we were able to rest assured that if we needed to cancel, there would be no fees for doing so.

Ring Alarm vs SimpliSafe Moving Policies

Moving seemed easy with both Ring and SimpliSafe. Since both systems were typically self-installed, we knew we could just pick up either system and go, entirely without fees. We were also grateful that with SimpliSafe, we could pay a professional $125 to install our system. Ring’s installation was more expensive. We were quoted $170 for a professional to install our small system.

Top System for Monitoring

With Ring, professional monitoring and cellular backup of our system cost us a maximum of $20 per month. With SimpliSafe, the same features cost us $31.99 a month. The choice was clear. For the affordability of its professional monitoring, Ring was the superior system.

>> Learn More: Full details on Ring Alarm’s pricing and monitoring options

Customer Support with Ring vs SimpliSafe

Both Ring and SimpliSafe offered customer support over their websites and phones. SimpliSafe even threw in an email option, which we liked.

Each company’s customer ratings differed based on where we looked. Both companies got perfect overall ratings from the Better Business Bureau, which meant they advertised truthfully and responded to any customer complaints, among other things. However, both companies got under two stars from customers on the BBB, a notoriously tough crowd.

As the Summerfort system was not sold on Amazon, we looked at customer reviews for a similar SimpliSafe 12-piece system. It had a 4.5 out of five-star rating, which we thought was decent. The reviews mentioned customer support but were pretty mixed. While some said the service agents they spoke to were knowledgeable and helpful, others complained about being on hold for hours. We were never put on hold for more than a few minutes while calling or live chatting with a support agent.

The Ring Alarm Security Kit had similarly mixed reviews. While Ring had a lower Google rating, it was only by 0.1.

Top System for Customer Support

While neither company offered consistently outstanding customer support, numerically, SimpliSafe barely won. Nevertheless, we believed both companies could benefit from more customer support team members.

The Ring App vs the SimpliSafe App

The last thing we wanted to discuss was each system’s mobile app. We knew that with smart security systems, our apps were basically our mobile command centers. Given that, we wanted to ensure both brands’ mobile applications connected easily to their respective systems and were user-friendly.

The Ring — Always Home App

On the Ring — Always Home app, we could live-stream footage, arm and disarm our system, control any connected devices, get crime and safety alerts from our neighborhood, receive notifications, speak through two-way audio, and review cloud storage.

The app had ratings of 4.4 at the Google Play store, and a 4.6 at the Apple store.

“App is nice and clean. Easy to use. A couple of annoying things/bugs:
– schedules are not shared between devices.
– you can get notification of an event, but when you go to check it in the app, it’s not there.
After a refresh it may appear, but you can’t click on it. You have close and reopen the app to view,”

Android user Luke Glanford wrote in a four-star review.

The SimpliSafe App

The SimpliSafe app offered the same features as the Ring app, so we could control our security system, check out our live streams, get notifications, and review footage.

Around the time of this Ring Alarm vs SimpliSafe showdown,  the SimpliSafe app got an influx of good reviews, which brought its rating up to a 4.8 in the Apple store and a 4.5 in the Google Play store.

Top System App

SimpliSafe won by a hair for the best app over Ring Alarm!

Recap of Ring Alarm vs SimpliSafe

So, which was the better system, Ring or SimpliSafe? Each was great for different purposes. We broke down our evaluation below.