SimpliSafe Smart Alarm Indoor Camera Review

The SimpliSafe Smart Alarm Indoor Camera ($149.99) is a noteworthy update to the company's indoor camera offerings. Its best feature is live guard protection, which allows the monitoring center to watch alarm events over a live camera feed actively.

While this is a handy evolution of video verification to confirm alarm events, the requirement of a SimpliSafe system makes it little more than a perk for new and existing subscribers. Still, the feature is powerful enough to keep SimpliSafe at the top of our DIY home security rankings. We tried this little security camera out in a real home. Here's what we found out.

The main draw of the Smart Alarm Indoor Camera is how it folds into SimpliSafe's Fast Protect professional monitoring with 24/7 live guard protection. With this feature, agents at SimpliSafe's monitoring center can check your camera's live feed during an alarm to keep tabs on what's happening in your home. The agents can even speak with people using two-way audio to deter an intruder, offer assistance to your family, or help cancel a false alarm using a safe word.

While this sounds similar to the video verification feature of other SimpliSafe cameras, the main difference is live guard protection's ongoing communication and access to your cameras. Video verification lacks the interactive element altogether—it relies on agents checking static video recordings instead of a live feed before sending help. Significantly, live guard protection and video verification are critical tools for reducing false alarms, which can result in fines for unnecessary emergency responses.

Ring offers what appears to be a similar service with Virtual Security Guard, but it costs four times more than SimpliSafe's option—you pay for a Ring Protect Pro plan ($50 per month) and Virtual Security Guard ($80 per month). The extreme price difference works in SimpliSafe's favor. While we're sure that other home security companies offer similar services, we still have more research to conduct on the subject.

SimpliSafe says you can expect up to three months of battery life on this camera, which is about average for a wireless security camera. The camera supports a wired connection for continuous power but comes only with a charging cable and no charger. You can buy the charger for around $10 on SimpliSafe's website.

In essence, the privacy shutter on the Smart Alarm Indoor Camera is a small piece of what feels like plastic that slides up over the camera's lens when you want to turn it off. You can hear if the cover opens, which tells you if someone reactivates the camera. This simple solution helps protect your privacy and spot unauthorized access to your camera—an essential feature for a camera that's supposed to work with monitoring personnel outside your home.

Privacy modes aren't new for security cameras, but you don't see physical privacy shutters on many cameras. Only the Arlo Essential Indoor immediately comes to mind. Still, we like how the visual and noise cues make it easy to see your camera's status at a glance.

The SimpliSafe Smart Alarm Indoor Camera is a great addition to our favorite DIY home security system. Its live guard protection and privacy shutter may even be enough to convince some folks to drop a competing system for SimpliSafe. But there's no reason to get it unless you buy or upgrade an existing SimpliSafe system. Plenty of standalone options have better video performance and features if you want only a capable wireless security camera without a security system.

SimpliSafe sent us the Smart Alarm Indoor Camera and a security system to test for this review. One of our team members tried everything at home for a few days and shared their experiences with editorial and YouTube creators at SafeWise.

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