Anybody got one? SimpliSafe? Wyze? Ring? Something else? Not sure if we would have it monitored or just do self-monitoring. Definitely want a DIY install. Looking for door sensors and a couple of outdoor cameras, smoke/CO detectors, and maybe a water sensor for the basement.

Interested in whether you're happy with the performance of the actual system, and the monitoring service if you subscribe to that.

Thanks!

I don’t have a full system but I do have a couple of Ring doorbells and a driveway camera.

They all work very well and were unusually easy to set up. Two of the doorbells couldn’t be hooked to the doorbell hardwiring and have to be charged every few months - a minor hassle.

I hadn’t thought of water sensors. They sound like a good idea.

We have a camera that sees our front porch and driveway and a little of the street, and one that sees our back porch by the sliding glass door (and also a little bit of street over the fence. I really like having them, I can tell when ups has been here, and when steve leaves, and sometimes the deer and moose and neighbors cat at night.

After our house was burglarized, we put in a seven-camera system to watch the external, and we have an alarm on the doors and windows. The interior alarm is connected to a service that automatically notifies the police if you don't shut the alarm off yourself when you do something stupid that activates the system.

Wired and interconnected smoke alarms are legally mandated here so I have to have them. Just go with the brand most commonly sold in the home improvement stores (at the moment these seem to be Kidde and First Alert; my observation suggests that the smaller brands may disappear and you may not be able to find compatible replacements later because different brands seem to adopt different interconnectivity protocols).

I like the idea of a smoke and/or fire alarm with a 10-year sealed battery but I have had a few lemons where the supposed "10-year" batteries lasted only 3~4 years.

Water sensors ... I use "The Watchdog Water Alarm", got a couple of those in the basement/utility room, one right by the water heater and the other right by the AC's water pump. I no longer remember where I bought these from. They each use a standard user replaceable 9-V battery and the design seem dumb enough that I feel confident they will work reliably as long as the batteries are good.

We have a SimpliSafe system in one place, an ADT system in the other. Both are monitored. The ADT came with the house itself. We purchased the SimpliSafe and I'd definitely recommend it. It depends a bit on what you want--but you can buy a system for a few hundred (at least a few years ago), and install it yourself quite easily. It all works on your wi-fi or, if that goes out, it switches to backup cell connections or something like that.

We had a ring doorbell but the sidewalk is so close to the front door it kept on getting triggered by people walking by.