Notion home monitoring review: Smarter sensors, but limited control

Value When Reviewed

$149.00

Greatest Prices Currently: Idea Starter Kit (3 sensors and bridge)

5-year-outdated Idea has turn out to be a entirely mature member of the good home community—to the stage wherever Comcast obtained the firm in 2020. Remarkably, Comcast hardly ever rolled Notion’s devices into its individual Xfinity security supplying, and the two security models keep on to run independently.

In simple fact, in contrast to in the aftermath of most company acquisitions, Notion has continued to greatly enhance its offerings. Its latest addition: The Notion Professional monitoring provider, which can keep tabs on all your Notion equipment for $10 per month, with the initial a few months accessible as a no cost demo.

This critique is component of TechHive’s in-depth protection of the very best smart household devices.

Notion’s checking approach is cheaper than most, and that is most likely intentional, since Notion’s sensor devices are less complicated than most. Notion’s components revolves completely around its multifunction sensors, just about every of which will work as a movement-detecting door/window sensor, a water leak sensor, a fire/CO alarm relay that listens for the audio of an alarm heading off, and a temperature/freeze sensor. A plug-in bridge connects these sensors to your Wi-Fi community.

Notion

If a little something goes awry, you receive a force notification to the Notion app on your cellphone. Very little appears to have modified (at least not outwardly) about the sensors or the bridge because the previous important update in 2018, and even the application seems to appear pretty much similar.

I can say that the set up system and procedure are both equally streamlined and a lot more steady than in the previous. Prior experiences with Notion generally finished up with damaged battery tabs, crashing apps, and vanishing network connections, but I encountered none of all those issues this time all-around. Setup necessitates a rapid scan of a QR code on the back again of every single sensor together with some primary in-app configuration, following which you’re questioned to pick out what the sensor is monitoring and the many sensor sorts you are enabling. (Just about every sensor can be set to monitor as numerous or as handful of varieties of functions as you’d like.)

Notion

I hardly ever encountered any operational difficulties all over my testing—although water leak detection felt on the sluggish facet, using the sensor about a moment to identify it was submerged in h2o right before it sent an inform.

As stated previously, what is new with Idea is the Idea Pro experienced checking process, which I subscribed to using a credit history card in the app. It is essential to notice that Idea Pro is not 1-measurement-matches-all. Various forms of situations beget unique styles of responses, which you can obtain outlined on Notion’s web site. The main difference is that doorway or window sensors as effectively as hearth alarm detection situations can be configured to notify unexpected emergency companies, whilst h2o leaks and freeze warnings can not.

I examined out Idea Professional by simulating a water leak at Notion’s suggestion—so as to keep away from owning the police demonstrate up at my door—and uncovered it worked typically as marketed on its website. A minute right after I acquired Notion’s force notification, I received a textual content notifying me of the leak. After yet another minute, a 2nd textual content arrived. One particular extra minute later I acquired a cell phone contact from a person who discovered himself as calling from “NATO Professional,” asking if I demanded assist. He was extensive in his inquiry but was in the long run joyful with my rationalization that I did not.

Christopher Null/Foundry

Notion specifies that you will only get a single text, not two, and that the initial cellphone connect with need to occur soon after two minutes, not 3 but other than that—and the modest flub from the cell phone operator, who was evidently doing work for many various monitoring services—I was generally happy with the reaction, despite the fact that things do appear to be to consider a very long though to escalate when compared to other monitoring solutions. If my Vivint safety system goes off, the mobile phone is ordinarily ringing ahead of I’m out of my seat.

The third-generation starter package reviewed in this article expenditures $149 and involves three sensors and a bridge (down from $199 in 2018). Idea isn’t just quick to get started off with, it is also affordable. The firm also a 5-sensor starter package for $199 and an 8-sensor package sells for $279. Three-sensor expansion kits are obtainable for $39 every single, and the $10-for each-month qualified monitoring system feels honest. It is worthy of noting listed here that very first-era Notion products and solutions are no lengthier supported in the Idea app, and that third-generation sensors will not function with the second-generation bridge. You can, nevertheless, function next- and 3rd-generation sensors jointly offered you acquire a third-era bridge ($59).

Notion is not and by no means will be a basis for a robust safety operation, but for people with easier needs—and no fascination in mucking all around with a dozen forms of cameras, control panels, and a variety of sensors—it can get the career carried out. Qualified checking ups the level of defense without having incorporating an onerous amount of money of price, or definitely just about anything in the way of complexity.