SimpliSafe Video Doorbell Pro Review

A Look at Design

Your video doorbell is likely going to end up on your front door, so it needs to be pretty enough to be on display. We liked SimpliSafe’s design for the doorbell. It has a minimalistic theme going with its capsule-like shape and the off-white finish that can blend in with almost any door design. Whether your front door is made of wood, metal, or glass, we don’t think it will look too out of place.

Don’t let the graceful design fool you, though. It’s about as rugged and durable as video doorbells come. The SimpliSafe Video Doorbell Pro’s casing is made of hardened plastic and is sealed shut to keep water and dust away from the electronics. It has an IP 65 rating, and when we had it installed, it was able to withstand an overnight downpour of rain.

Adding to its durability, the SimpliSafe doorbell has an official operating temperature range of 14 to 104 degrees. Now, this could be a problem if your state experiences below-zero temperatures during winter. And be warned: you could void your warranty if you use it beyond the recommended working conditions. If you live in an area that gets frigid winters, check out our Lorex video doorbell review. That one can live in sub-zero temperatures.

Another thing to note before buying is that SimpliSafe’s doorbell doesn’t run on batteries. It must be hardwired to a doorbell setup with an AC transformer between eight and 14 volts. That means it won’t work when there’s a power outage. For a doorbell that can work 24/7, with or without power, see our Nest Doorbell Battery review. It’s a great alternative to the SimpliSafe doorbell, especially since it works with ADT security systems (currently holding the top spot of the best home security brands).

But we digress; if you want to go with SimpliSafe’s doorbell but don’t have the right wiring setup in place, you have a couple of options. First, you can buy an adaptor for your wiring setup from SimpliSafe. There are several options, so make sure to buy the one that’s right for you. The second option is to plug the doorbell directly to a wall outlet. SimpliSafe offers the adapter for that, too.

Hooking up the SimpliSafe Video Doorbell Pro

You’re probably wondering why SimpliSafe didn’t just make a battery-powered doorbell, especially since those are commonplace now in the home security scene. Ring, one of the best video doorbell brands right now, recently launched the Battery Doorbell Plus and Battery Doorbell Pro. They have advanced features, superb video quality, and (you guessed it!) a battery that powers them.

Well, SimpliSafe has good reasons for opting for a wired design. The install process was easy for a hardwired video doorbell. It took us 15 minutes, and that was worth it considering that we won’t have to recharge or replace the battery. It was a one-and-done, set-up-and-forget device.

Here’s how we installed the SimpliSafe Video Doorbell Pro.

1. We turned off our home’s main electrical switch, and then removed our existing doorbell.
2. We hardwired the doorbell to our existing doorbell setup. Step by step instructions are included in the manual. Thankfully our home’s wiring was supported. If yours is not, you’d need a 16-volt AC transformer from SimpliSafe.
3. We turned the power back on and waited for the doorbell to boot.
4. We downloaded the SimpliSafe app and initiated the Wi-Fi pairing process. The app provided the instructions.

Now, setting up a wired video doorbell isn’t for everybody. It’s easy if you have experience and if your home’s wiring is up to spec, but you’d still need technical know-how. Safety always comes first, so if you’re not confident you can do it, we recommend professional installation. SimpliSafe offers that starting at $125. A tad expensive, but given how popular doorbell cameras are these days, you can find a local technician to do the job for less than what SimpliSafe charges.

Despite the slightly more complex setup process, the SimpliSafe Video Doorbell Pro is in line with SimpliSafe’s goal of simple home security. And if you’re really worried about setting up the system, keep in mind that SimpliSafe offers optional professional monitoring on-the-cheap.

SimpliSafe Video Doorbell Pro on the Daily

We initially tested the SimpliSafe Video Doorbell Pro alongside a SimpliSafe security system. It’s one of the components we mentioned in our SimpliSafe review. And what we liked about the integration was that it allowed the doorbell to record any time one of our SimpliSafe sensors was triggered. That’s the advantage of a doorbell camera that works directly with a security system.

That said, the SimpliSafe Video Doorbell Pro offers decent features on its own. It actually covers all the basics, from crisp videos to clear audio, as well as advanced detection of security threats. Let’s go through them one by one.

• Video: As we said, 1080p is the standard among security cameras and video doorbells. The SimpliSafe Video Doorbell Pro has HDR as well, so the footage looked better lighting-wise. Plus, with the pan and zoom feature, we pinned down the smallest details. Finally, the 162-degree field of view gave us a wider vision of our street, which is usually jam-packed with cars and people.

• Audio: Two-way audio is vital to any video doorbell. It means you can hear the person at your front door, and you can talk to them through the doorbell’s speakers. Basically, two-way talk allows video doorbells to function as intercoms, and that’s exactly what the SimpliSafe doorbell did.
• Night vision: SimpliSafe uses infrared night vision. It doesn’t emit blinding white lights to see at night; instead it uses invisible infrared lights from IR LEDs. That helps keep the video doorbell inconspicuous, while also providing clear nighttime videos. We also found that it’s not prone to glare – our chief editor was wearing glasses but there was minimal glare coming from them.

• Storage: Recording is also a vital camera feature, but SimpliSafe lacks free cloud or local storage. That’s bad news if you’re hoping to use the doorbell camera without monthly fees. Even if you’re willing to pay a fee, though, know that SimpliSafe is on the more expensive end. Cloud storage for one camera costs $4.99 per month, while it costs $9.99 for five cameras. That’s pricey, considering that Ring offers cloud storage for unlimited cameras and doorbells for $10.
• Person detection: Suffice to say, we love video doorbells that have artificial intelligence. We don’t want to be bombarded by useless notifications alerting us of cars passing by or neighborhood cats strolling by. SimpliSafe uses two methods to distinguish person movement; it has a PIR motion sensor that detects heat signatures and computer vision that can identify human forms within the frame. Those definitely came in handy in reducing the false alerts we received.

Monitoring & Storage Breakdown

As mentioned earlier, SimpliSafe offers two video storage options: $10 per month for up to five cameras or $4.99 per month for one camera. Well, you could also use the video doorbell without a cloud plan and monthly fees. However, with this, the doorbell won’t record, so it essentially becomes a two-way intercom you can access via the app.

That’s why we recommend buying a cloud subscription, because you never know when you might need event recordings.

Compared to other video doorbells we’ve tested, SimpliSafe’s cloud plan pricing is a tad higher. Ring, for example, offers cloud storage for any one Ring camera for $3.99 per month, while gives users unlimited cloud storage for any number of cameras for $10 per month. There are even discounts for signing up one year at a time: $39.99 for the one-camera plan and $100 for the unlimited cameras plan. With SimpliSafe, only monthly plans are available.

Can The SimpliSafe Video Doorbell Pro Be Monitored?

Now, if you’re using a SimpliSafe security system, there is one more option available to you, and that is the Fast Protect plan that costs $29.99. That’s a huge jump from the $10 cloud recording plan, but hear us out. The Fast Protect plan includes professional monitoring of the SimpliSafe security system (but not the doorbell camera). That means it will alert SimpliSafe’s monitoring facility to any emergencies picked up by the security system.

Additionally, the Fast protect plan includes cloud storage for up to 10 cameras, plus it has video verification. Whenever there’s an alert, as long as you’re on the Fast Protect plan, SimpliSafe will use your cameras’ live feed to verify the alarm and speed up police response.

Things get even better if you have a Smart Alarm indoor camera, a newly-released camera from SimpliSafe. If you have both the camera and a Fast Protect plan, live agents from SimpliSafe’s monitoring center can use the camera’s two-way audio to drive burglars away. You won’t have to do anything; SimpliSafe will detect and deter the intruder for you.

Are There Local Video Storage Options?

The simple answer is “no.” SimpliSafe won’t store videos locally; it relies on cloud storage. What’s more, SimpliSafe doesn’t offer free cloud storage. So if you’re using it as a standalone device, your only option is to sign up for a cloud recording plan that starts at $4.99 per month. That’s pretty expensive. On top of that, videos are sent to the cloud so you need a reliable internet connection with an upload speed of at least 2 Mbps.

On the bright side, though, videos stored in the cloud are safer from tampering than videos stored on location. Let’s say you’re using the Wyze Video Doorbell, which uses a microSD card for storage. Video doorbells are placed outdoors, which means a wise thief could disconnect the microSD card or rip the doorbell off the wall to stop it from recording. You’d have no video evidence left if they do that. With SimpliSafe, though, recordings are uploaded in real-time. Whatever happens to the doorbell, your videos are safely stored somewhere else.

SimpliSafe Customer Support

We dread contacting customer support for any reason, but connecting with SimpliSafe representatives wasn’t as bad as we thought. Before that, though, we should mention that there are a number of ways we sought answers for any questions or issues we ran into while using our SimpliSafe Video Doorbell Pro.

The company offers phone support, forums, email contact forms, user manuals, and a help center. All of these provided useful information. A quick Google search also helped us navigate around SimpliSafe’s website with links that directed us to its support pages.

What we found most helpful when we called a SimpliSafe customer service representative was the extended hours, which lasted until midnight EST. For those late nights when we’d come home and needed immediate responses, we were grateful for SimpliSafe’s late hours of operation.

The representative we spoke to, Dave, answered our questions — like why the SimpliSafe Video Doorbell Pro stopped streaming one time. Dave clarified that if the LED color was yellow, it meant that a firmware update was in progress. That explained everything. He communicated patiently and didn’t sound the least bit tired during our 11:15 PM phone call.

While it took some time to get connected with Dave, we were satisfied overall with our experience.

SimpliSafe Home Security App Experience

Recent data reports indicate that people use mobile apps 90 percent of the time over mobile sites,2 so it’s no surprise that many home security brands have created their own mobile apps to complement their products.

With the SimpliSafe Home Security app, we saw live footage of our front porch. While there was a little bit of lag, we panned and zoomed in, and the video quality remained crisp. There were two simple features with the live video: record and microphone. We recorded and saved our footage to the event history to review later. As for the microphone, we just had to tap on the little icon to speak to any visitors or delivery folks at our front door.

One little qualm we have with the app was that it wasn’t very robust. There were very few settings we could play with, although we were able to adjust the motion detection sensitivity, check the Wi-Fi signal on our video doorbell, and adjust a few other settings.

On the bright side, it was the same app we used to control and access our SimpliSafe home security system. It certainly made it easier to manage our home security.

Video Review

Need a visual of our experience with the SimpliSafe Video Doorbell Pro? Check out our SimpliSafe Video Doorbell Pro video review below.