SimpliSafe 8 Piece Wireless Home Security System - Optional 24/7 Professional Monitoring - No Contract - Compatible with Alexa and Google Assistant , White

Why it's worth it

SimpliSafe's eight-piece kit covers an apartment or a small house with entry sensors, a motion sensor, a keypad, and a base station with a siren. Monitoring is optional and month to month, so you can switch professional dispatch on for a trip and off when you're home.

Nothing else here is this easy to live with. The base station plugs into an outlet, the sensors stick to door frames, and the app walks you through the rest. Wirecutter puts a starter kit's setup at 30 to 45 minutes, against the two-to-four-hour appointment window a professionally installed system asks of you. Owners who describe themselves as hopeless with electronics say they had the whole thing running before dinner.

Response time is the part you can't see until it matters. SafeHome.org's independent testing clocked SimpliSafe's monitoring center at under 30 seconds from alarm to call, versus roughly 45 seconds for the industry at large. That gap sounds trivial written down. At 3 a.m., with someone working on your back door, fifteen seconds is a long time to stand there.

From our review of 5 home security systems, by Laura Cole, Lifestyle Editor

What we like

• +Nothing else here is this easy to live with
• +Response time is the part you can't see until it matters
• +The sensor mix in this kit is sensible rather than generous
• +The no-contract part isn't a marketing footnote

What to know

• –Without a subscription, the system gets noticeably dumber
• –The hardware is plain and plastic