Video doorbells are great for keeping an eye on what goes around your house. But when a package is being stolen, all you get is the footage of someone walking away with our stuff. SimpliSafe is working on making things a little more secure.
The company’s new Video Doorbell Series 2 extends its Active Guard Outdoor Protection service directly to the front door. When the doorbell detects a potential threat, trained US-based monitoring agents can view the live feed, speak directly to the person outside, activate the doorbell’s siren, and, when necessary, request police dispatch while the camera records what is happening.
A live person can take over when something looks wrong
Active Guard already works with SimpliSafe’s Outdoor Camera Series 2. The service uses AI to identify people and potential threats before passing suspicious events to professional monitoring agents, who can intervene through the camera rather than waiting for someone to enter the home. SimpliSafe claims that agents can respond in less than 30 seconds with its existing outdoor implementation.
Its AI can distinguish people and packages, with vehicle detection coming later. Activity Zones can exclude busy sidewalks, roads, or neighboring property. Customers on eligible plans can also create Familiar Faces for people such as relatives, neighbors, or dog walkers, helping agents distinguish expected visitors from unknown ones. Automatic face matching is unavailable in Illinois, Texas, and Portland, Oregon, although SimpliSafe says agents can still manually review events in those locations.
The camera itself gets a substantial upgrade
The Video Doorbell Series 2 records at 2K resolution and offers an expanded head-to-toe view intended to capture both a visitor and whatever they may have left on your doorstep. It also adds enhanced two-way audio, dual-band 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi, and up to five seconds of pre-event video capture, so recordings can show what happened immediately before an alert. Colored status lights indicate who is speaking: amber when a monitoring agent is interacting through the doorbell and blue when the homeowner is doing so.
The doorbell costs $199.99 and requires a SimpliSafe Base Station and Keypad, along with an existing wired doorbell, compatible transformer, and mechanical or digital chime. You can use it without professional monitoring, but the headline feature requires Active Guard. The Pro plan costs $49.99 per month and provides overnight Active Guard coverage from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. local time, while Pro Plus costs $79.99 per month for 24/7 coverage.
