ADT Pulse ® Reviews

UPDATE: the update that ADT recently pushed has been like night and day. I have had close to 100% consistency on using ADTPulse (either through wifi or cell service). I'm SO extremely grateful they made the adjustment that I'm sure many people desperately needed. I'm giving 4 stars because I still have issues with the actual system, but ADTPulse has been great so far!

If I had known of the inadequacy of ADTPulse while subscribing to their service, I would have gone with a different provider. ADTPulse will freeze my phone constantly, regardless of if it actually connects to my system or not. It almost never works, which have caused me to set off my alarm many times just trying to enter my house. I have spent countless hours sitting in front of my house, either trying to get in, or trying to set my system to leave. Absolutely ridiculous, useless and frustrating, to say the least. Do yourself a favor and find an alternative, or wait for them to fix this stupid remote access.

I am great-full in so many ways for ADTs’ camera’s being available for us, as they are for my husband and I, right here in Scarsdale. As a mom, always on the move, busy doing something for my kids and the husssband, it gets pretty tuff to have eyes on our three kids, ALL the time. As always, I’m preoccupied with my day to day duties/chores and I can’t avoid the thought cross my mind that maybe I need to run down and check on them. Once upon a time, in the middle of something I’d been tryna finish for a couple days now and getting in the groove, would have to stop, only to be interrupted by a nervous/worrisome thought bout the kids, since, of course they were in the storage/playroom, adjacent the garage and of course I was on third floor, evidently put off once again what I was tryna finish. But no more putting off. Thanks to ADT, those fearful thoughts are not there and for that I will always be forever great full.
So after all that being said I can’t expect perfect. However if I had the ability to actually control the movement on each camera and pin point what I’m looking at/for, wooooo weeee, now that’s when I’d say we’d be talking serious business. But, ummm, who am I to say something’s not perfect? Lord knows I’m not. But who is? Right?
ADT - you guys rock!!!
Thanks a mill!!!!!!
Hanife

ADTPulse sold me on ADT. The ability to arm/disarm on the go was worth the upcharge. The last app had some issues on my wife's phone (6splus) but mine worked perfectly (7plus). The new one didn't want to connect yesterday after I downloaded it... not a huge deal.. thought it was maintenance..... connected this morning and looked promising for the new layout... closed it... ever since it won't load. Gets to the splash screen and crashes shortly after. I'm giving them a few hours until we leave for the grocery store and if it's not working I'm demanding a refund for ADTPulse fee

Update: They've updated ADTPulse several times since I put this review in.... app is still broken. Less than 10% of the time I need to use it I can. I've tried all of their steps to fix it. Signing in using my password rather than my thumbprint has helped some, but sometimes ADTPulse fails to load completely. I've been back and fourth with their customer service several times and they refuse to offer me any credit and only one has offered to remove the charges for ADTPulse but that also would take away the access through the website as well.

Someone at apple needs to take this piece of garbage down.

Do not use ADT they lie to you. I was told by my tech that I would have 3 days from complete installation to cancel services with no fees or and money required. However that wasn’t the case. They installed the panel and window sensors. Then left. Then came back a couple 1-2 weeks later and installed the cameras. On this date with everything installed was when I was informed my 3 days started. After all, how do you know you want a product until you get the finish product. After playing with the system for a day I noticed the camera quality to be very bad. Plus the cameras can only take 30 second clips then you have to wait 3 minutes to take another clip. This is unacceptable. So I called to cancel and they then told me that to cancel it was 3 days from the original install. I was very upset to say the least. So I tried to still cancel and now they want pay for all the equipment and pay 1200 dollars just to cancel. Do not use ADT they are liars and now I’m stuck paying over 2,000 dollars for a service I did not want and with outdated equipment and services... so disappointed in this company.... please don’t waste your time or money....

Lol look at their response... they don’t care about you..... they didn’t even read my complaint... I want my money back not more bad cameras...

I wish they are motion executed so I can see the whole video instead of just 30 seconds. If they stayed on while there was movement, I would really love the functionality of the cameras plus there’s too much of a delay in between when the camera is reset and ready to take videos again. I think it’s kind of a fault with the programming system but I don’t know how they could make it camera ready after it shuts down so that it would be able to continue taking shots of movement. Still trying to work that out.

There is actually a half a minute longer that I can’t view and parts that I missed completely of what’s going on in my own front yard. I would like to know how I can extend the 20 second to a 60 second (1 minute or minimum of 60 seconds).This is 2021 and there are so many contiguous options out there I’m surprise that ADT doesn’t offer an option to continue to video the MOVEMENT AROUND THE CAMERA while it is occurring!

Please advise!

It's been quite a while since I last submitted a review of ADTPulse, and in that time it's changed from an exercise in frustration to a tool which I can just use without having to think about it. There is a significant weakness in the Pulse architecture as a whole, however. There is no way to use Pulse with a partitioned system, except for P1. The implications of that bad choice include my not being able to see sensors or events in the partition which protects my shop and garage, 200 feet away from my house, and not visible from most areas of the house. Nor is the system capable of sending me texts or emails when there's something I should know about. Nor can sensor events in my outbuilding partition trigger video clip captures, even though I've had ADT install two cameras on that building. Therefore, although ADTPulse now works well, the Pulse system lacks functionality which I consider to be fundamental.

There is an incredible delay between logging into ADTPulse and being able to arm my home. After opening ADTPulse , i see “connecting” on the home page for sometimes 5-15minutes even up to hours as I wait for ADTPulse to connect to my home system. I have even left my home disarmed overnight simply because I couldn’t get ADTPulse to connect to my alarm system. I have full internet connection at 50mbps and no issues reaching any websites on my phone. I turn WiFi off to attempt to connect via LTE to ADTPulse and the same thing occurs- “connecting to system” for 5-15minutes, sometimes it fails all together. So despite multiple connection modalities and ability to reach all other internet based services, it’s clear this is on ADT. Cox communications, my prior home security company, had a far superior response time with ADTPulse and truthfully a better all around experience. I pay for Pulse upgrade for remote access via my phone and it has let me down to the point it could be unsafe in the right circumstance should i need quick app access, not to mention leaving my home disarmed overnight due to ADTPulse ’s inability to connect. Very dissappointing for the world leader in home security.

I would recommend ADT to anyone; It’s a great security company. However, I feel like I am not getting what I pay for with ADT Pulse. ADTPulse feels old and stale, and the Web Portal is even worse. It feels like there wasn’t enough thought put into the design and use of Pulse. A lot of controls are put in awkward places, and camera feeds often black out or take a long time to reconnect. ADTPulse is missing a lot of controls that are present in the web portal as well. The web portal itself has no clear indication of where features are, like putting “Alerts” under the “Rules” category, but also having other alert options under the “My Profile” section. That’s also another thing, Pulse doesn’t send notifications unless you sign into an owner account, which is complicated, especially because it has to be done each time you reinstall or get a new phone. There’s also no special notification noise, meaning if there’s a true emergency, I’m more likely to ignore it as another notification from social media.

The point is- the little things snowball, making the entire experience of Pulse fall apart.

I have been having issues with ADTPulse for the last 3-4 months. I used to be able click on expand and see a full range view of my camera live. Now every time I click on expand, it no longer gives me the full range view of my camera and instead I get a smaller . I called and the rep tried to blame it on my iPhone, then said it was Verizon and I needed to call them to fix a setting on my phone. Based on that conversation I knew calling in was pointless so I had them send a tech out. I had two different techs come a week apart and the 1st one replaced my camera even though I insisted it was ADTPulse . Finally, the 2nd tech agreed it was an app issue and called me back a few days later and explained that he reached out to icontrol, who is the developer of ADTPulse and it was a known issue on a variety of phones. That’s great to finally get an answer however, where’s ADTPulse update so I can go back to using my camera like I had been for months?? If they get can’t ADTPulse to work, then I will be canceling as I consider this a breach of contract and ADT is not providing me the service I signed up for which included the use of ADT pulse app. I do have the most recent version 8.6.1 and still doesn’t work.

ADT is not addressing this issue. ADTPulse no longer connects to keypad. I cannot arm or disarm using app. Now control panel is showing “103 Check LngRng Radio”. Whatever that means! I’ve had ADT at my home this month to update ADT control panel by inserting a “chip” and discovered that my app would not work with control panel. Several more calls and scheduled visits only resulted in temporary fix of problem. Rebooting control panel temporarily resolved problem. Deleting and reinstalling app doesn’t work. I’ve read a number of reviews and this is a chronic problem that has not been dealt with by ADT for years. I’ve read reviews up to 3 years ago regarding this issue prior to pandemic. I’ve been a loyal paying customer for almost 10 years. I’m writing this review because I believe that ADT is better than this. Customer service has been great about trying to help resolve this situation but this is bigger than them. ADT please get your act together. I really want to continue being a loyal paying customer!

I have been an ADT Pulse customer for about 8 years now, and ADTPulse is a must-have. I’m a very very app user in general so I’m not easily impressed, but they have continued to improve ADTPulse over the years and it’s hard to find anything to be critical about. Most of the time I use ADTPulse to arm/disarm the alarm since it’s almost quicker to do it from my phone. ADTPulse has all the bells and whistles, but since I always believe there’s a way to improve, I will throw out a suggestion: I wish there was a way to scan in your home floor plan so you wouldn’t have to draw it all out. Even if ADT offered that as an add-on/scanner service, I would be willing to pay for it because seeing all the zones on a floor plan view is much more helpful/intuitive when you are looking for an open window or a particular zone the has been tripped. Well done!!!

The purpose of ADTPulse is to be able to control the panel and it’s functions, however it lacks some of the panel functions. You can’t set up schedules from ADTPulse (must go to actual website on a webpage), you can’t bi-pass any doors or windows through ADTPulse . All it’s good for is turning on the alarm and turning off the alarm, nothing more. Pretty useless. Everything else must be done from the website.

Absolutely worst service ever! Once again ADTPulse gives “operation fail” for controlling any of the outside lights that are assigned. This was an UPGRADE I paid for and it’s constantly failing! Setting up schedules had to be done on the computer. That was done and it worked for 1 day and now ADTPulse no longer responses and the lights are off! Unless I now manually turn them on they aren’t working and I must contact ADT to fix the issue! It’s a pandemic I DONT WANT YOU AT MY HOUSE! Pathetic! Do not get this service! As soon as our contract is up we are dropping them!

By the way all positive reviews AREA IN FACT FAKE! Their service has sucked for the past 2 years that I’ve had them!

This is the most unreliable app I've ever used. And that's not a good thing since I depend on it's functionality for the security of my home. To make matters worse, I'm paying $60/mo. for this unreliable app. Upon opening ADTPulse , the arm/disarm function usually takes literally minutes to connect...even when I'm on my home wifi that usually runs at 180mph. Sometimes it doesn't even connect. So guests have to wait for a long time before I can remotely unlock the door and let them in. Even after it does connect, sometimes pressing the disarm button doesn't actually disarm the alarm. The cameras only work intermittently, and the garage opener fails too frequently to be relied upon as well. I really wish I could get a refund of all my fees and switch to Vivant since their app seems to connect almost instantly every time my friends show it off.

Iphone: I use ADTPulse every night as part of my routine to arm the system when going to bed. For THAT it seems to work well. Because of this habit, I rarely use the main system panel. When leaving home, I use ADTPulse from the car as I exit the garage. Unfortunately, if I forget to do this, I am unable to access the Arm/Disarm features when I remember to arm the system from work or when I’m not on a wifi network. I get an error “No wifi found”. (Unlike the Philips Hue app or Home Kit app which work fine over cellular without wifi). - Basically useless as a remote app. Watch App: Pretty much useless so far. When home it will spin on the Loading screen & never load OR if/when it does load, will say “Security Device panel not found” when attempting to arm the system. (NOTE: I have installed & reinstalled ADTPulse several times). - Attempting to use ADTPulse remotely (outside my wifi) results in ADTPulse spinning on “loading” forever & never connecting. - It’s basically never worked.

Used to have home view. Now they don’t. Wonder why they don’t brag about removing features. Probably because they’re ashamed for being so cheap and petty. Better dl it now while you can still arm and disarm with it before they turn off that feature to save money as well. Typical corporation, claim they care and sell you a feature set that proves it, then they remove what you were sold on while they hike your rates every month.

Someone else commented they wanted home view back and a developer replied with something to the effect of “thanks for the input, we’re always looking for features to add”. How about you stop taking away features that were already offered and used as selling points by your personnel?

God knows your over leveraged and looking to cut costs, so why don’t you start by reducing you CTOs salary instead of robbing from your clients? Your customers care when you take away features, not when you cut the salary of the person that decided to take away the features to save money and paid their paycheck.

I was with another alarm company for almost 10 years and in all of that time I was never as happy with that alarm as the one I have now. I have worked with the tech Robert and he was so accommodating and helpful. He was here to please me and he made me feel like I was the only and most important customer he has. His insulation was flawless,neat and very professional. It was getting late but he wasn’t leaving until he had us totally comfortable with our new system. I had a small issue arise and had to call service. Wow I worked for the largest tool manufacture in the world for 40 years and we proudest ourself for customer service. Well ADT does the same thing. I had two different people working on my issue and they stayed with me until it was solved. Again I felt like I was ADT’s most important customer. Thanks guys for showing me some company’s practice what they promise.
Gus Trapani

For over one year, I have asked ADT to replace an outside camera and for the last three months, in addition, I have been trying to get a switch replaced so that my carriage lights stop blinking all day long. Now, I have another switch gone and two outside lights not working because of this for a total of four outside lights that are not working. I like ADTPulse , but the service is absolutely terrible! Guys have shown up without ladders or equipment so they cannot replace the camera. ADT was to either bring the switch or mail it and they’ve done neither for all of this time. I call and call and many ADT people promise but nothing has changed. Throughout all of this horrendous lack of service I’m still being charged monthly.

Love the fact that I am deployed and can visually check in on my family and view the camera. I can also set the alarm from thousands of miles away in case she forgets, which she does all the time. It has really given me a peace of mind which is what I wanted while being gone for almost a year now. What I would like to see on ADTPulse is a way to trip the alarm should i see something wrong while looking at the camera. For instance, an intruder coming in and the alarm is not set. If the doors are open while this happens I cannot trip the alarm in order to signal the police. I can only do it while the door is closed by setting it to ‘away’ hoping that someone’s body trips the motion sensor in the living room during the intrusion and also that I have decent WiFi to react quickly. Maybe have some sort of panic button on ADTPulse ? But that might not fix the door needing to be closed in order to trip it??

Within the past 8 months or so, I called Adt with assistance with using the pulse app from my Apple Watch. Each time they had me delete ADTPulse in my phone, reinstall, sign in, and open ADTPulse on my phone. It only worked when I completed those steps. I stopped using ADTPulse on my watch. Forward to this week. For some reason, I decided to try ADTPulse on my watch again. I signed in and it worked! Hallelujah! Then, 24 hours later, I tried to use ADTPulse on my watch again. It didn’t work and my watch said that I needed to enable “keep me signed in” on my phone to utilize ADTPulse on my watch. I checked ADTPulse on my phone and I had the box checked. I logged out, made sure the box was still checked m, and logged back in. ADTPulse on my phone works, however, this morning, I got same same message. Come on Adt, get it right. Don’t break things that were working. Now that ios15 in here, I hate to see what happens when I update my devices.

Not that this platform is stable enough for it, but you should also have 🍎WATCH access. For the extra cost on your plan ADTPulse should be far more reliable and interactive. More often than not It takes far too long to connect to my system. And I often get an error message when I try to arm the system leaving me frustrated and having to remember to try again in a few minutes making a task that should be convenient, inconvenient! On the rare occasion that ADTPulse loads smoothly it’s actually easy and fast to use. Checking zones and arming with ease and having the option to bypass on the fly is clutch... when it works. Now we just need to get it working like that every time. Then think about integrating the 🍎watch. Would love to be able to check zones arm/disarm with the same zone bypass options and view cams. I know I’m asking for a lot but you also require quite the premium cost on your equipment and service as well. So I think it’s a fare ask. Hopefully someone that matters actually gets eyes on this and takes note lol

I switched from another cheaper home Security Company because of inconsistent customer service, inadequate equipment and their out sourcing of call center. I got inadequate equipment, security and service from the previous company.
Fortunately, ADT equipment is superior and security so much better. ADT monthly cost is higher but reasonable especially with much improved service and security. ADT initial professional installation and basic equipment is free. This includes the front door RING system with camera, motion sensor and intercom. My wife and I are pleased with the professional installation with improved security and internet fire alert. Their cameras cover more area and is clearer.
Switching to ADT is one of our better decisions we made.
ADT is a dedicated security company with excellent customer service.
Highly recommended.

The video clip functionality in this new upgrade is terrible. You could no longer slide between clips. It’s necessary now to close each clip, find a new clip, then open it. Very slow, and creates a safety issue in that after receiving a notification, it’s too difficult to view a clip to see what is going on at the moment. The video clip screen is very small now unless you turn your phone into landscape mode. This was not the case before the upgrade. Also, the filters won’t hold and I have to necessary keep changing them to see all cameras. My husband doesn’t have this problem on his firvaone reason, although we updated the same time! As mentioned in a previous review, the connections are terrible as well. Sometimes it is necessary to log in and out a few times repeatedly before the cameras will connect. This is just unacceptable in a home security device. We could be robbed blind, have a fire, or any number of bad things happening by the time we finally got connected! We are not at all pleased with the ADT pulse app.

STill too slow toggling between live camera and video clips. Also, it takes too long to pull up live video feed after connecting and buffering. Should be instantaneous and it’s not. Third, enabling audio from ADTPulse so you can talk to someone near door takes too long and realistically you would not be able to engage visitor in limited time window. Fourth, the fact that you can’t mange all settings in ADTPulse and have to revert to website is a massive significant flaw in the user experience. You guys really need to solve that issue. Should be in a product backlog- if it’s not then you guys have other issues that need to be addressed. Last, you guys have gaps between hand offs between CSR and technician. CSR never set expectations on what needs to be prepped prior to arrival ( is an available port for the hub in the router, having a router eith close proximity to doorbell, etc).

I’m a victim of a horrific home invasion I was sleeping in my bed & was awakened by a man strangling my neck !!i survived the attack the other person was killed if I did not have the Adt alarm now today I would not get any sleep at night I’m struggling to pay the fee monthly because I’m just in a small income of disability I need the service more then you know wishing and praying for a miracle to get caught up with the past due bill O how I feel so bad not able to pay but I’m trying my best Lori GOLINA the pastor was so nice to put it in his name D Dreier I do t want to hurt his Crefit. I’ve had your device fir years I’m just behind now praying for a miracle angel to help me get caught up. Does your company have any way to lower bill and start new. single mother struggling God bless you Happy holidays 🌲🌲🌲☮️🙏🏼🏢

ADT is not working like it used to. ADTPulse doesn’t connect to the system, and it is impossible to get ahold of anyone at the company who can understand what you are explaining to them. When you do explain the issue, they give vague answers and blame it on you, your phone, your cell service provider (which makes ZERO sense)... anything but ADT is to blame. When I called them for the third time today, they told me to uninstall and reinstall ADTPulse . I uninstalled, and guess what? ADTPulse had disappeared from ADTPulse Store entirely! The rep who talked to me on my fourth call put me on hold forever, then came back on and said their manager was shocked to see ADTPulse didn’t exist in ADTPulse Store. They then sent me to a direct portal, but you can’t control your system from there at all. Now ADTPulse is back in ADTPulse Store, but you can’t set your alarm with it. My contract just ran out with these goobers. I have a new security system being installed next weekend. ADT is an embarrassment to themselves. Later, jerks!

You can open ADTPulse and see if your system is armed or not but on the history of activity there is no way (that I can see) to look back and see when alarms are set or not. ADTPulse USED to be configured to include notifications all throughout the history that said “system armed away” or “system armed stay”, “system disarmed”. But now it does not.
This is a problem for me because when I travel, I don’t know if my family members are actually using the alarm system unless I check real time. Who has time for that 20 times per day? I want to know when my kids went out the night before if they turned on the alarm when they left. I also looked at ADTPulse just now and it looks like my alarm is not armed. Did someone disarm it? Or did it just not get turned on for some reason. I think not having this information is more than a pain, it’s a real security problem.
Please add this feature back please!!!!!!!