Abode Reviews

I purchased an this app system to secure my home a few months back and installed it directly after. I immediately had issues. 1 of 3 this app Cams I ordered didn’t work right out of the box. 1 more stopped working within 24 Hours. They sent me two more. Again, 1 didn’t work at all, the other worked for a week, and then again, failed. While I was a paying subscriber for their monitoring, my Abobe system stopped responding to my door sensors at all. I set the alarm, opened the door, and nothing. No notifications. No alarm triggered. I have no idea how long it wasn’t working. Each time I’ve interacted with this app support, they were next to no support. The features that are pictured in the Self Monitoring sections of their website don’t accurately reflect the product they deliver either. They show the user receiving a detailed notification about events happening in their system; however, that isn’t the case. With the self monitoring, users only get a generic message stating that an event occurred with no further detail. The notifications for “self monitoring” do not help someone monitor their home using an expensive security system. They just serve as another notification on the phone. Im not sure how this company hasn’t been hit with a massive class action lawsuit on behalf of its customers, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.

Abode update looks better, but the trade off has been inconsistent functionality. Cue automations sometimes work, sometimes don’t. This evening for instance I’ve tried running the “turn off all lights” automation and it keeps throwing an error (“The request is timeout”). When combing on/off and color settings for lights in automations, the color settings are ignored until the second time the automation is run every day. Errors are thrown with no clarity as to why when trying to create certain automations but not others. Some of the this app hardware works with IFTTT, but not all. Their own motion sensors for example do not integrate. this app’s website simply says they “proudly support IFTTT”...this is misleading. Abode needs a lot of QA, exception handling, user testing, and clearer descriptions on their website as to which products do or do not integrate with other platforms.

I bought the alarm four years ago when it didn’t require a subscription. Unfortunately, it’s now $220/year to get notifications on your phone. That kind of bait and switch is usually a sign of a company that’s in a pricing death spiral, so probably best to look elsewhere for a security system. We’re replacing ours later this summer. Notice that in the developer’s response claiming that you do get notices without subscribing, they don’t mention what those notices say. The notice says “An Event Occurred”. That might be a water alarm caused by a broken pipe or it might just be a momentary network glitch (which happens regularly and isn’t their fault). All meaningful information is blocked unless you pay for a subscription. If you go into Abode , the information about the alarm is blocked behind an offer to become a subscriber. No subscription=no information Don’t just take my word. Sort reviews by most recent and see how many others within the past year say the same thing.

We had the system for 2 years with no monthly subscription. It included timeline features and auto set alarm based on phone location and auto set features for night and morning. They also advertise short term package with professional monitoring. We tried to use this when going out of town for a week and have our system monitored. When we returned we tried to return to a free self monitored program but were informed the auto set feature now needed a monthly subscription and since we used their pro service short term we could not return to subscription free program and still have the features we had the week before. But they did offer a dollar a month discount… Thanks for nothing.I had recommended this product over the previous years but after being tricked into a subscription Hope no one makes the same mistake

We’ve attempted to use this app for a year and have had every failure imaginable. We’ve contacted support which will troubleshoot the issue after the fact but then within a week a new issue will come up. The fobs don’t work. The cameras constantly loose connectivity. Even if the cameras have connectivity half the time you can’t see play back despite paying for 24/7 monitoring. Or you can’t scroll down to rewatch footage without it freezing. Humans walking up to the door won’t be captured despite person/pet monitoring being turned on. The list goes on. Ultimately you cannot have peace of mind using this system since it is constantly failing, needing troubleshooting or just straight up not recording. 0/10. A complete waste of money and time. If you are looking for a security system that records 24/7 when you pay for 24/7 monitoring then I would not use this system.

I used to be incredibly happy with Abode and system, and then after I owned it for probably at least a year they made a feature that used to be included on the free plan, only available by paying a monthly subscription. The feature was the ability to see which specific device triggered the alarm. I just started to notice that it would tell me the alarm was triggered, but would not tell me which device. When I finally reached out to them, they said that to stay in business as a company they had to change features and pricing options and that I would have to pay for the subscription to gain access again to a feature that I previously had since the time I purchased the system.

obviously, I paid a bit of money for the hardware, so to suddenly lose a feature that is a pretty core part of the functionality and be told I have to pay more and I’m going to get access to it is pretty shady business practice in my opinion. They gave me a discount for the subscription for the first year, but that does not solve the problem.

The door and window sensors are good. They are reliable and easy to install, but window sensors aren’t the main event here. The cameras are the reason anyone buys a security system and with this app they have given me nothing but trouble. The Cam 2 has been delayed and delayed and delayed, so I bought an Outdoor Cam to at least get something I can monitor my porch with. It won’t sync with Abode and the customer service rep tasked with helping me just up and ghosted. No response for over 5 days. Did you know that you can’t use the cameras if your SSID has a hyphen in it? The standard router from every ISP I’ve ever had uses a hyphen in the default name from the factory. You’ve got to rename your SSID and reconnect everything in your house. It shouldn’t be this hard to secure your house, especially when you shell out $500+ on gear.

I have had customer service and device management issues with my this app alarm system since day one. Every time I’ve had a customer service issue this app does NOT take me at my word or believe me. The amount of evidence I had to provide in order to ‘prove’ my case/side of any issue is astonishing. As if I have some ulterior motive for insisting that they deliver the product that I ordered. As if I have some ulterior motive for reporting the issues I’ve had with the wide angle motion camera. Today was the final straw. After an alarm event I cannot get the WAMC to work (despite the fifth set of new batteries in two years (they’re supposed to last five years)) I can’t get the keyboard (version2) to arm or disarm my system and then there’s problems with the documentation and pairing procedures. this app is a subpar system that I cannot recommend. I wish I hadn’t bought it. I’m considering removal and replacement with a different system, despite the cost and effort involved.

First off, the good: the hardware integration with Abode is great. If you just want to watch things through your cameras, it doesn’t get much simpler than this. Setting up motion and door sensors is similarly easy, and all are pretty simple to monitor through Abode .

Next, the middling: if you want to put your camera outside, prepare to do some electrical work or run cords around in a jenky setup. The camera runs off a 5v / 2a USB hookup similar to most modern consumer electronics. Fine if you just want to plug it in inside, more challenging as an outdoor setup. Fortunately, Abode works just as well either way.

Now the bad. Support is terrible. Will they solve your issue? Probably, if you have the patience for it. It’s set up over a chat option that feels like it has two employees handling multiple customers at once. You’ll wait 10-20 minutes to talk with someone, then you’ll wait 10-20 minutes between interactions. I’m paying at the $20/month tier, I can’t imagine what it’s like for folks paying less.

I haven’t had the alarm set off yet. Who even knows what happens then.

The feature that allows you to have the alarm automatically turn on and off when you enter or exit the home has never worked correctly. Even though Abode has location services turned on and my phone also has locations services turn to “always “, the alarm does not register my location correctly and will not turn on and off automatically which causes issues if I forget to manually set the alarm. It is a nice thought but in practice it fails 90%of the time. I have even logged out, logged back in, deleted and reinstalled Abode as well as turned on and off the location services in Abode and on my phone, but unless my app is open and running the auto set feature will not work.

I joined the smart home security device bandwagon early on. Maybe too early. Years ago, this app was the only company offering an external siren and monitored service, which are vital features if you’re looking for a complete home security alert system. So I jumped in head first. Years later, I’m still dealing with random alarms going off for no apparent reason, unstable app and firmware updates, and slow customer service. Between door and window sensors, camera, and sirens, I’m in too deep now to replace the entire system. That said, as soon as a single device goes out, I’m switching to a full service like Comcast Home. Yes, they are more expensive, but given how much time I spend troubleshooting, you have to ask yourself, what’s your time worth?

this app has been terrible from the start. My original system took over 5 weeks to ship with no shipping updates. My outdoor camera that was advertised to support HomeKit STILL does not support HomeKit. It also barely streams and the quality is pretty terrible. I made the mistake of ordering additional cameras because the price was good, and of course, more shipping delays. I can understand everyone dealing with the chip shortage right now, but the next delay was because of QC issues.

Oh, and my support ticket took over ten days to get a response.

this app is going to be my window/door alarm, as well as a motion sensor in my basement. But DO NOT purchase any additional accessories from this company. You’ll thank me later.

There is a lot to love over the competition (HomeKit, cheaper fees, lots of different sensors) but just as much I don’t like. The over all product experience is surpassingly rough for a 4+ year old company.

For example adding a bunch of sensors at once, every 5th one seems to make Abode hang and leave the sensor in limbo. Force quite, re-open, remove sensor, force quite so it’s internal cache doesn’t get confused, re-add. That’s dumb.

The industrial design is basic. Just barely passable compared to pretty much everyone but old school SimpliSafe or hardwired ADT. If you can do the embedded or slim sensors, I’d go that route. The sounds it makes are also unpleasant and the integrations to make custom sounds are so slow you might as well not have them. People have been asking for good sound for literally years and nothing changes…

Performance is also meh. Supposedly can cover large houses but I have some sensors that trigger open but never trigger back to closed. Move closer and it works just fine. Rapidly open and closing a door often SKIPS an alert. It’s conceivable that such a lag is a security concern. HomeKit support is top notch, it’s as fast and as accurate as the underlying this app bridge.

At the end of the day I wish I would have stuck with SimpliSafe. It’s more expensive and has no official HomeKit support, but at least it’s a rock solid and nicely designed system.

I have been using the this app app for a few years now. I’ve been happy with the price, service and stability of the system.

There are two things that would improve Abode to a five star for me:

1) change the UX and naming to be more clear between “Standby” and “Home”

This seems trivial, but no matter who I train to use this system, including myself, everyone always mistakes home for standby.

In other words, when arriving home and turning off the alarm system, the natural tendency is to press the button marked Home. As in, “I am now at home.”

However, this changes the alarm to the “stay” condition, so doing this will just make your alarm go off when you walk into the house!

2) I tend to do self monitoring when I am home, and enable the more expensive monthly monitoring when I go on trips. This is a great feature and is the primary reason I went with the this app system. However, you cannot make this change directly. You have to use the website. Again, it is simply more confusing than necessary.

I carefully reviewed many home security providers in an attempt to find a good system that would allow me to self-monitor my home. I read good things about this app and they vigorously promoted the ability to self-monitor your system if you purchased from them.

For those reasons, I purchased their system, spending over $750 on hardware from this app. It was a great system and a good value.

Suddenly last month, this app has made the decision to “turn off” the previous ability to self monitor the system that was previously available without a monthly subscription. Where you used to get a notification saying something like “your system lost connection with the internet” or “your laundry room water sensor has detected a leak”, you now just receive a notification saying “an event has occurred” with no way to determine what has happened. You now must pay monthly for this minimal basic functionality that was the entire advertised reason to buy their system.

Don’t support a company that destroys previous functionality of their product. If they did it once, it likely will happen again.

I find it a little ironic that you can buy a keypad that also has a motion detector built in, but you can’t change any settings on the keypad such as volume or chimes. Abode treats it like a paperweight!
Also, You apparently sort the order of your devices in the list, but the order keeps on changing on its own!
In addition it’s location services are quite antiquated. It uses a country list that is more than a decade old! Sint Maarten became a country in 2010 along with two others, but Abode still only shows the old Netherlands Antilles. God only knows what other updates are missing???

this app has always been great on the intrusion/monitoring side, never had any complaints there. They’ve come a long way on their video services, but still definitely needs some development. Biggest aggravation is trying to load a live stream and it failing about half the time, even though the 24/7 service is recording the video. 24/7 has also been much more reliable since the last round of firmware updates.

Only other suggestion would be to set the Apple Watch complication to auto-update every so often, so that the icon correctly reflects the arm status of the system without having to tap it.

Abode does have a very smooth interface. I’ve found It’s using Abode in combination with the Apple Home app that allows me to go a bit deeper on certain automations in settings which you just can’t do on the HomeKit side alone. Everything sinks automatically (except for cameras) from the this app app to HomeKit. (I don’t use this app cameras). When you do need to jump over to the this app app and check on something or set up a new device it’s seamless and easy. I currently currently have 12 devices/sensors in my set up with the top model “this app Security System hub” which has built-in battery back up and ethernet port. Love the keypad way nicer than Eufy or anything else I’ve seen her used in the past. I do wish this app would adopt all four options as in HomeKit “Home, Away, Night, Off” like Aqara has. Five stars on not just Abode but this app overall. If you’re in HomeKit and need a security system this is the no-brainer go to.

We’ve had our this app system since it was first introduced in 2019 and haven’t had a single hiccup or even had to reboot it once. Set-up of devices has been easy, including this app window/door sensors, Zigbee water leak sensors, and a Z-Wave water main shut-off valve, triggered by leak sensors we placed below pipes in the crawl space under the house. Through firmware updates that are advertised via the this app app, they’ve added HomeKit and have simplified features, making things ever more simple the longer we’ve had the system. Alerts for home monitoring took some time to set up but all was relatively straightforward once I figured it out. I’d suggest that the this app team recommend some standard alerts (I.e. send me a notification if someone leaves a door open for more than 20 minutes, etc.) to introduce how Abode can be used to simplify life at (or away from) home. It’s amazing how the system just works with any home automation part we can find. 10/10!

I have been using the system for about 5 years. I pay the monthly service to get the most out of it. I am satisfied with it and the features that it has. It isn’t perfect and I don’t care for the way that some of the features work, but I like many of the features that it does have. I do like the automation that it has. I have exterior lights that automatically cycle at night. I do wish the category of compatible devices for automation was larger, but it does have a decent selection. All in all, I like it and I have plans to expand the system further.