Wyze Home Monitoring Review: Big Savings, Bridge the Gaps
"Wyze comes at a compelling price for home security, but it takes more work to catch up."
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Very affordable home monitoring plan
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Inexpensive hardware
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Option for wired or wireless connection with hub
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No cellular backup connection
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Limited selection of accessories
When it comes to making noise in the smart home space, nobody is doing it better lately than Wyze. The company has tirelessly expanded its portfolio over the past year, which surprisingly now includes vacuum cleaners, headphones and fitness trackers. The latest offering is Wyze Home Monitoring, a 24-hour home improvement security system designed to protect your home when you are there or not.
After a series of hits with its surveillance cameras, the Wyze Home Monitoring is pursuing the same strategy of being extremely affordable. At $ 5 a month, it's without question the lowest priced subscription. However, are there any compromises with such low cost?
Cover basics
First, let me explain what comes with the Wyze Home Monitoring System. The Core Starter Kit ($ 110 MSRP) is exactly what you'd expect. It consists of a 5-piece kit that consists of a hub, a keyboard, a motion sensor and two input sensors. What's especially important here is that this starter kit is almost a fraction of the cost of its closest competitors – between $ 150 and $ 200 – for packages from Ring, SimpliSafe, and Blue from ADT.
John Velasco / Digital Trends
For the price, you get the same basic components as the other home security systems. So in that regard, it's more for the money. However, a comprehensive selection of accessories is always an advantage when it comes to fully covering your home. With its current portfolio, Wyze lacks the depth of accessories that its competitors offer. While you can have additional motion and entry sensors for the system at a much lower cost than the competition ($ 20 for three entry sensors and $ 8 for one motion sensor), it comes down to the breadth of accessories you have still not close gonna find anywhere else.
However, if you are concerned that someone might be intruding on your home, hitting additional sensors can provide more security. While external threats are paramount, Wyze needs to add other accessories like carbon monoxide detectors, flood sensors, and more to monitor other potential threats around the home.
Optimizations required with experience
Wyze's inexperience in this area will be exposed after I check out the app. The activation and deactivation of the alarm system can be done either physically via the keyboard or via the app. You can select a countdown to have enough time to activate / deactivate. There are three main arming modes: Home, Away and Disarmed.
This starter kit is almost a fraction of the cost of its closest competitors.
As you would expect when a system is armed, the hub will emit a loud siren when any of the sensors are triggered. If you have a Wyze surveillance camera, you can also set it up to automatically record when one of the sensors is triggered. For example, if the front door is opened while it is armed, you can have the Wyze Cam in your living room to automatically start recording. Oddly enough, cameras themselves do not trigger an alarm if movement is detected and the system is armed. Instead, you will receive an app notification.
While the basics are well covered here, some additional tweaking is needed before it can be compared to the major players in the field. In particular, the hub cannot emit any distinguishable noises each time a sensor is triggered – not even at home. Personally, I like being at home to hear a sound when the front door is opened. You don't have that option here.
What is even more puzzling is that the system continues to sound the alarm in home mode and also dispatches law enforcement agencies. Fortunately, I had it in test mode whenever it went off, but I would love to see a proper home mode where I can still have the sensors active but only send me notifications (or play a sound on the hub) when they are always activated. In disabled mode, everything is simply disabled so that there are no notifications or alarms.
24/7 surveillance with Noonlight
Wyze Home Monitoring offers 24-hour monitoring via Noonlight, which not only triggers alarms when sensors are triggered, but also emergency helpers who are on standby in emergency situations. When you consider that the service cost is $ 5 per month or $ 60 per year, it undercuts most other home security systems.
John Velasco / Digital Trends
However, when it comes to protection, there are still some loopholes that need to be addressed in the future. Take the Wyze Hub, for example. I am happy to have the option of connecting it wired or wirelessly to my house's network and having my own emergency power supply in the event that the power fails. However, without an active internet connection at home, it will become unusable. Other systems, such as the base stations from SimpliSafe and Ring, have an integrated cellular connection as a backup. In Wyze's situation, no internet connection means there is a coverage gap.
Our opinion
It's a good start, but there is certainly still a lot of work to be done before Wyze Home Monitoring can deliver the same solid and complete home security service that its competitors offer. The accessories portfolio in particular does not make it quite as robust and experience requires additional optimizations and improvements. The cost is hard to miss, however, as you will not find anything that cheap remotely otherwise.
How long it will take?
All components of the system are made of plastic. It's enough, but the design and build quality is obviously a step behind what you get from names like SimpliSafe and Ring. There is a one-year limited warranty that covers the hardware components against defects.
Is there a better alternative?
SimpliSafe and Ring offer two of the most comprehensive home improvement safety systems on the market. Ring, in particular, has one of the deepest accessory rosters that can cover your home inside and out, while SimpliSafe offers impeccable service that goes above and beyond most – for example, the ability for a service dispatcher to access a camera, to review real threats.
Should you buy it?
Yes, but only if you are in need of cost. I expect it will get better over time as more accessories become available and the experience improves.
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