Notion home monitoring review: Smarter sensors, but limited control

Selling price When Reviewed

$149.00

Finest Prices Currently: Notion Starter Package (3 sensors and bridge)

5-yr-aged Idea has become a thoroughly experienced member of the intelligent home community—to the position wherever Comcast obtained the firm in 2020. Incredibly, Comcast hardly ever rolled Notion’s products into its individual Xfinity stability giving, and the two security brands keep on to operate independently.

In simple fact, compared with in the aftermath of most corporate acquisitions, Idea has ongoing to increase its choices. Its newest addition: The Idea Professional monitoring service, which can retain tabs on all your Notion equipment for $10 for each thirty day period, with the initially three months obtainable as a free trial.

This assessment is section of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the finest intelligent property programs.

Notion’s checking system is more cost-effective than most, and that’s possibly intentional, simply because Notion’s sensor devices are easier than most. Notion’s components revolves completely close to its multifunction sensors, each and every of which is effective as a movement-detecting door/window sensor, a h2o leak sensor, a fire/CO alarm relay that listens for the audio of an alarm going off, and a temperature/freeze sensor. A plug-in bridge connects these sensors to your Wi-Fi community.

Idea

If one thing goes awry, you receive a thrust notification to the Idea app on your mobile phone. Very little seems to have modified (at least not outwardly) about the sensors or the bridge because the final significant update in 2018, and even the application appears to seem practically identical.

I can say that the setup process and procedure are both streamlined and much more steady than in the earlier. Earlier activities with Notion generally ended up with broken battery tabs, crashing apps, and vanishing community connections, but I encountered none of individuals difficulties this time about. Setup calls for a swift scan of a QR code on the back of each individual sensor along with some essential in-application configuration, just after which you’re questioned to pick what the sensor is monitoring and the numerous sensor kinds you are enabling. (Just about every sensor can be established to keep track of as quite a few or as several styles of situations as you’d like.)

Idea

I by no means encountered any operational issues in the course of my testing—although drinking water leak detection felt on the gradual side, using the sensor about a moment to understand it was submerged in h2o in advance of it sent an notify.

As stated earlier, what is new with Notion is the Idea Pro expert checking system, which I subscribed to using a credit score card in the app. It’s significant to take note that Idea Professional is not 1-sizing-fits-all. Distinctive kinds of activities beget distinctive sorts of responses, which you can uncover outlined on Notion’s website. The big change is that door or window sensors as nicely as hearth alarm detection situations can be configured to notify crisis companies, though drinking water leaks and freeze warnings can’t.

I tested out Notion Pro by simulating a drinking water leak at Notion’s suggestion—so as to stay away from possessing the police exhibit up at my door—and identified it worked mostly as advertised on its web-site. A minute right after I obtained Notion’s press notification, I been given a textual content notifying me of the leak. Soon after yet another minute, a second textual content arrived. A single far more minute later I gained a phone contact from an individual who determined himself as calling from “NATO Professional,” inquiring if I expected help. He was extensive in his inquiry but was in the long run satisfied with my explanation that I did not.

Christopher Null/Foundry

Notion specifies that you will only get one particular text, not two, and that the to start with cellphone simply call really should arrive right after two minutes, not three but other than that—and the little flub from the mobile phone operator, who was obviously operating for a lot of distinct checking services—I was usually delighted with the response, though issues do feel to acquire a very long when to escalate in comparison to other monitoring expert services. If my Vivint security process goes off, the cellphone is commonly ringing right before I’m out of my seat.

The third-era starter kit reviewed listed here fees $149 and involves a few sensors and a bridge (down from $199 in 2018). Idea isn’t just simple to get began with, it is also economical. The company also a 5-sensor starter kit for $199 and an 8-sensor kit sells for $279. Three-sensor enlargement kits are obtainable for $39 each, and the $10-per-month expert checking strategy feels honest. It’s truly worth noting below that 1st-generation Notion products and solutions are no longer supported in the Idea application, and that third-era sensors will not work with the 2nd-generation bridge. You can, however, work second- and third-generation sensors together provided you acquire a 3rd-technology bridge ($59).

Notion is not and under no circumstances will be a foundation for a robust safety operation, but for customers with simpler needs—and no desire in mucking about with a dozen styles of cameras, handle panels, and different sensors—it can get the job done. Experienced monitoring ups the amount of security without the need of incorporating an onerous quantity of expense, or truly something in the way of complexity.