Luxury is the best word to describe Vivint equipment—it sports some of the sleekest equipment designs in home security, right up there with the likes of Google Nest Secure.* While Vivint makes most of the equipment in its systems, it’s also compatible with third-party smart home devices.
Take a deep dive into Vivint’s equipment offerings and pricing below to see why this premium security system is worth exploring for your home. If you’re interested in seeing the bigger picture—including professional monitoring and customer service—we recommend heading over to our complete Vivint review.
Vivint-compatible equipment in this list
Vivint equipment
Base equipment
No matter how you customize your Vivint system in the end, every starter kit includes a few necessities: a smart hub, door and window sensors, and a motion sensor.
Here’s why your home security system won’t offer much security without these essential devices:
- The smart hub coordinates everything in the system and directly connects to the monitoring center.
- The door and window sensors track when someone tries to enter your home by spotting when doors and windows open.
- The motion sensor watches for activity inside your home.
| Number in starter pack |
| Price |
| Vivint Smart Hub | Door and window sensor | Motion sensor |
 |
 |
 |
| 1 | 2 | 1 |
| Not sold separately | $50.00 | $100.00 |
Info current as of 09/14/2020. Offers and availability may vary by location and are subject to change.
About Vivint’s equipment pricing
If you want some context for Vivint’s equipment prices, it’s the single most expensive home security system on the market when you look at individual equipment prices. This is most apparent in the $100 motion sensor, which costs three times the $30 median price for most other brands. You read that right—that’s a $70 difference.
While the motion sensor is one of the worst pricing offenders, Vivint’s overall pricing practices aren’t very competitive.
Starter kit cost
Sensors
Outside of the base equipment in every starter kit, Vivint sells sensors that allow your system to detect other threats like smoke, flooding, glass breaking, and carbon monoxide.
Info current as of 09/14/2020. Offers and availability may vary by location and are subject to change.
Accessories
While Vivint’s accessories don’t play starring roles in monitoring your home, they make it more convenient to lock the door, close the garage, arm your system, and control your AC using the Vivint app.
Info current as of 09/14/2020. Offers and availability may vary by location and are subject to change.
Smart plug recall
Cameras
Vivint sells three security camera models: the Vivint Ping Camera, the Vivint Outdoor Camera Pro, and the Vivint Doorbell Camera Pro. All three models have 1080p video quality and compete well with offerings from Frontpoint and ADT.
The company recently updated the outdoor camera and doorbell camera to stay ahead. As with other Vivint equipment, these cameras are pricier than usual. The outdoor camera pro’s price tag is almost on par with that of the Google Nest Cam IQ, the most expensive security camera.
We suggest checking out our Vivint camera guide if you want to learn more about these cameras.
Expensive monitoring plan
Info current as of 09/14/2020. Offers and availability may vary by location and are subject to change.
Vivint Smart Drive
The Vivint Smart Drive is essentially a hard drive that saves up to 30 days of continuous security footage. We like local storage like this because it’s typically more secure than storing videos in the cloud, though you shouldn’t put it in an obvious location where burglars can find it.
Included cloud storage
Vivint Car Guard
Vivint Car Guard plugs into the OBD II port you find on most cars made after 1996. It allows you to monitor important information about your car using your smartphone:
- Location
- Battery life
- Check Engine messages
Not to mention it records a variety of trip statistics (including your impeccable driving habits).
This GPS vehicle tracker also boosts your car’s security by telling you if someone bumps it or if a tow truck picks it up. Thanks to built-in GPS and an LTE cellular signal, you’ll always know where you parked your car too.
Although the trip statistics and monitoring are the main reason to get Vivint Car Guard, it’s also a useful addition to a Vivint security system. We like that the Car Guard can trigger lights and cameras in your home in reaction to thieves breaking into your car.
While Car Guard works with Vivint security systems, it doesn’t require one. There’s no contract, but you pay a $10 monthly fee for the first car and $5 for each additional vehicle. If you already have a Vivint system, the monthly payment drops to $3.33 for each car.
Third-party smart home products compatible with Vivint
Vivint’s third-party smart home support is among the best in the home security industry. We especially like that it sells many of these devices directly to customers, making it easier for you to outfit your Vivint system in one fell swoop.
Amazon Alexa
Vivint has two Alexa skills that allow you varying degrees of control over your Vivint system when you use an Amazon Echo smart speaker. The Complete skill has more functionality since it can arm your system in addition to typical smart home requests, but you need to use the phrase “Ask Vivint to . . . ” before you issue a command.
The Basic skill works more like a regular Alexa command and doesn’t require you to ask Vivint anything. While it works with lights, thermostats, locks, and cameras, this skill doesn’t offer an arming feature.
Feel free to browse our Alexa guide if you want to learn more about Amazon’s smart home platform.
No disarming
Google Assistant and Nest Thermostat
You can use Google Assistant to control your Vivint system using voice commands and Google Home smart speakers.
Vivint’s support page says that its SkyControl panels support Google Assistant, but we didn’t see mention of the newer Vivint Smart Hub. You can likely expect it to work, but we reached out to Vivint to verify that the Smart Hub works with Google Assistant and will update this article when we hear back.
If you want to learn more about how Google Assistant works, check out our in-depth guide.
Vivint sells both the Nest Learning Thermostat and the Nest Thermostat E directly to customers. But you shouldn’t fret if you already have a Nest thermostat since you can link it to your Vivint system using Google Assistant and the Vivint Smart Home app.
Nest problems
Philips Hue
Philips Hue is one of the most popular smart lighting brands and essentially your only option for integrating smart light bulbs into a Vivint home security system. It’s a bummer that there isn’t more support for other smart lights, but at least Philips Hue makes excellent (though expensive) lighting gear.
Chamberlain MyQ
The Chamberlain MyQ garage door controller converts your existing garage door opener into a connected device. It’s an excellent option to control your garage door with a smartphone. It integrates directly with Vivint security systems, so you don’t need to buy the Z-Wave garage door controller accessory Vivint sells.
Z-Wave
The Vivint Smart Hub has a built-in Z-Wave radio that allows you to control these third-party Z-Wave devices through the Vivint app:
- Smart lock
- Smart thermostat
- Garage door controller
- Light switches and dimmers
Unfortunately, the Smart Hub doesn’t support other types of Z-Wave devices like sensors. This means you have to bite the bullet on expensive Vivint-branded sensors instead of buying reasonably-priced Z-wave alternatives.
Disclaimers
*Google Nest Secure, Google Nest Cam IQ, Google Assistant, Google, and other related marks are trademarks of Google LLC.
Written by John Carlsen
John is a technology journalist with over seven years of experience researching, testing, and reviewing the latest tech. Before joining SafeWise in 2020, John was an editor for Top Ten Reviews specializing in home security and the smart home. Learn more
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