SimpliSafe Video Doorbell Series 2 Review

A Look at Design

Ring may have set the standard for video doorbell design, but the boxy nature of its devices look bulky compared to the sleek, modern design of the Video Doorbell Series 2. With a black front housing, a white LED ring and a matte, weather-resistant finish, it looks great on modern homes, but suits just about any door frame. Plus, its ability to catch the eye can act as a deterrent for porch pirates and other would-be intruders.

>> Compare: SimpliSafe Vs. Ring

We also found the hardware itself tough. It’s rated IP65, so it’s protected against dust and rain, and it’s rated for temperatures from -4°F to 122°F. That’s how it survived the torrential rainstorm we experienced during our time testing it. While it can survive most climates in the U.S., it’s not ideal for places where temperatures regularly drop below zero.

Unlike some other video doorbells, SimpliSafe’s Video Doorbell Series 2 doesn’t run on batteries. You’ll need to hardwire it to your existing doorbell transformer, which should supply 16 to 24 volts AC (30 VA max). While you don’t have to worry about the battery dying on this device, the SimpliSafe doorbell will go down if 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 (a leading security system brand much like SimpliSafe). We dig into all the differences between SimpliSafe and ADT in our SimpliSafe vs ADT comparison.

If you want a Video Doorbell Series 2 but don’t have the wiring in place, you have a couple of options. You can buy an adapter that connects to your electrical wiring. Unless you have electrical experience, we don’t recommend doing this because it’s more complicated than it seems. The second option is to plug your doorbell into a wall outlet, which also requires an adapter. Unfortunately, SimpliSafe doesn’t sell either of these adapters so you’ll have to buy a third-party adapter that provides the right voltage.

Hooking up the SimpliSafe Video Doorbell Series 2

For most people, installing the Video Doorbell Series 2 isn’t a hassle, which it has in common with some of the other best video doorbell cameras. To be fair, it’s harder to install than a battery doorbell. However, you’ll never need to worry about a dead battery leaving your home vulnerable. During our test, the full installation only took about 15 minutes. You’ll need to access your internal wiring. Here’s the full process:

1. Before touching any wires, we turned off our home’s main electrical switch. This is an important safety step. Then, we removed our existing doorbell.
2. Next, we hardwired the doorbell to our existing doorbell setup. To do that, we followed the step-by-step instructions clearly written in the manual. There were even pictures to follow for visualizations. If we needed more help, we could head over to SimpliSafe’s website for a video guide on installing it, but we found the manual provided enough information for us.
3. After hooking up the doorbell, we turned the power back on and waited for the doorbell to boot up.
4. While we waited for the doorbell’s indicator light to turn on, we downloaded the SimpliSafe app and initiated the Wi-Fi pairing process. That way, once the doorbell finished booting up, we were ready to connect it to our system. The app told us exactly what to do.

Working with electrical wiring isn’t for everybody. If you’re not confident in your electrical abilities, we recommend professional installation, which SimpliSafe offers starting at $125. If that’s too expensive, you might be able to find a neighborhood electrician or handyman who can handle the job. Just make sure work by non-professionals is allowed in your area.

Despite the slightly more complex setup process, the SimpliSafe Video Doorbell Series 2 is in line with SimpliSafe’s goal of simple home security. We say that because of how easy it is to use on the day-to-day which we’ll get into in a bit. But once you pass the hurdle of installing the Video Doorbell Series 2, using it couldn’t be simpler.

SimpliSafe Video Doorbell Series 2 on the Daily

We tested the Video Doorbell Series 2 as part of a SimpliSafe security system, as described in our SimpliSafe review. That’s the only way it works, since it needs a Base Station. This allowed us to take a more holistic view of this device, as opposed to just reviewing video quality and on-board capabilities.

During our tests, we found the SimpliSafe Video Doorbell Series 2 genuinely enhanced the overall security system. It covers all the basics, from crisp videos to clear audio to advanced detection of security threats. Let’s go through them one by one.

• Video: Although higher resolution cameras are available, the Video Doorbell Series 2 records in 2K, which is a step up from the 1080p that’s standard among the best security cameras and the best video doorbells. The 150-degree horizontal field of view provided us with a head-to-toe look at visitors and the porch.

• 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 we can confidently say that this feature came in handy often during our testing period.
• 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. That’s once again thanks to its HDR feature.

• Storage: If you want to store the video the doorbell captures, you’ll need SimpliSafe’s subscription-based cloud storage. The $9.99 per month fee gets you 30 days of event video storage on up to 10 cameras. For comparison, the Ring Protect Multi plan, which also costs $9.99 per month, offers 180 days of video history for unlimited Ring cameras.
• Person detection: SimpliSafe’s AI detects people and packages and sends labeled alerts based on what it sees. It comes with every plan except Standard. You can also draw custom Activity Zones to ignore road traffic or a neighbor’s yard, and People Only mode (on select plans) notifies and records only when it sees a person.
• Pre-event capture: The Video Doorbell Series 2 saves up to 5 seconds of video before an event on every plan with cloud recording. Previous models only recorded the event itself during our testing.

Monitoring & Storage Breakdown

As mentioned earlier, SimpliSafe offers a self-monitoring plan with video storage that costs $9.99 per month and supports up to 10 cameras. If you want to avoid monthly fees, you can opt out. However, then the doorbell won’t record footage. That means you’ll need to immediately pull up the live feed for every alert if you want any chance of catching an intruder or package thief in the act.

Compared to other video doorbells we’ve tested, SimpliSafe’s cloud plan pricing is reasonable but not cheap. Ring, for example, offers cloud storage for any one camera for $4.99 per month. Unlimited camera plans start at $9.99 per month. Plus, Ring stores event recordings for 180 days compared to SimpliSafe’s 30 days of storage. Ring also offers discounts on annual payments. With SimpliSafe, you can only pay monthly.

Can The SimpliSafe Video Doorbell Series 2 Be Professionally Monitored?

Most video doorbells aren’t backed up by live security agents. If you have a Blink doorbell, there aren’t any live agents ready to jump in and help during a break-in vis-a-vis the video doorbell. But the SimpliSafe Video Doorbell Series 2 isn’t most doorbells.

With the Active Guard feature, available with the Pro and Pro Plus plans, the video doorbell can detect potential threats to trigger a response from SimpliSafe agents. They then pull up the live feed and communicate with you or intruders through two-way audio and the built-in siren. These plans also include video-verified alarms, which speed up the response time of emergency services.

You don’t need a separate outdoor camera for Active Guard Outdoor Protection anymore, because the doorbell can start a response by itself. SimpliSafe’s Outdoor Camera (Series 2) can also trigger one, and one account supports up to three doorbells and/or Outdoor Cameras (Series 2) on Active Guard.

Here’s the pricing breakdown:

Are There Local Video Storage Options?

Sadly, there isn’t a local storage option with SimpliSafe. If you want to store video, at the bare minimum, you have to sign up for the $9.99 self-monitoring plan. This plan includes up to 30 days of video event recordings. Clips can be downloaded to your phone or computer via the SimpliSafe app or the web, respectively.

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.

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.

Even with SimpliSafe’s help center, we still needed to call their customer service one evening when our app wasn’t livestreaming footage. It was after business hours, but thankfully, SimpliSafe offers extended hours until midnight EST for customer support calls.

The representative we spoke to answered our questions. He said a firmware update was the reason why we couldn’t livestream footage at the time. While it took some time to get connected, 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 they spend on their phones,2 so it’s no surprise that many home security brands have created their own mobile apps to complement their products. And SimpliSafe is no exception.

From the home screen of the SimpliSafe Home Security app, we’re shown our doorbell camera’s live footage of our front porch. There was some lag, but the video quality remained crisp enough to zoom in as needed. The app’s also where we’d go to manually trigger recordings or use our doorbell camera’s two-way talk.

One issue we have with the app is that it isn’t very robust. There are limited settings you can adjust. We were able to modify the motion detection sensitivity, check the Wi-Fi signal on our video doorbell, and adjust a few other basic settings, but we had hoped for more.

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 SimpliSafe’s Video Doorbell? Check out our video review below.