Notion home monitoring review: Smarter sensors, but limited control

Rate When Reviewed

$149.00

Finest Prices Currently: Idea Starter Package (3 sensors and bridge)

Five-year-aged Idea has come to be a thoroughly experienced member of the sensible dwelling community—to the place in which Comcast acquired the enterprise in 2020. Shockingly, Comcast never rolled Notion’s equipment into its very own Xfinity safety featuring, and the two security manufacturers proceed to work independently.

In actuality, in contrast to in the aftermath of most company acquisitions, Notion has ongoing to boost its choices. Its hottest addition: The Idea Pro checking service, which can retain tabs on all your Notion gear for $10 for every month, with the first a few months available as a free of charge trial.

This critique is portion of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the very best sensible household systems.

Notion’s monitoring strategy is less expensive than most, and that’s in all probability intentional, mainly because Notion’s sensor products are less complicated than most. Notion’s hardware revolves completely around its multifunction sensors, each and every of which is effective as a movement-detecting doorway/window sensor, a h2o 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.

Idea

If anything goes awry, you get a push notification to the Idea application on your telephone. Almost nothing seems to have transformed (at least not outwardly) about the sensors or the bridge because the past key update in 2018, and even the app appears to seem practically equivalent.

I can say that the setup method and operation are both equally streamlined and far more steady than in the previous. Preceding experiences with Idea usually finished up with broken battery tabs, crashing applications, and vanishing network connections, but I encountered none of people troubles this time about. Setup calls for a speedy scan of a QR code on the back again of each individual sensor along with some primary in-app configuration, just after which you are requested to pick what the sensor is monitoring and the many sensor forms you are enabling. (Every single sensor can be set to keep track of as numerous or as few varieties of gatherings as you’d like.)

Idea

I never ever encountered any operational difficulties during my testing—although water leak detection felt on the slow side, using the sensor about a moment to acknowledge it was submerged in water in advance of it despatched an warn.

As stated earlier, what is new with Notion is the Notion Professional experienced checking technique, which I subscribed to using a credit rating card in the application. It is crucial to notice that Notion Professional isn’t just one-sizing-matches-all. Unique styles of occasions beget distinctive sorts of responses, which you can come across outlined on Notion’s web-site. The main variation is that doorway or window sensors as effectively as fire alarm detection gatherings can be configured to notify crisis services, though water leaks and freeze warnings can not.

I tested out Idea Professional by simulating a drinking water leak at Notion’s suggestion—so as to stay away from having the police present up at my door—and identified it worked primarily as marketed on its web page. A minute after I gained Notion’s push notification, I received a text notifying me of the leak. Following another minute, a second textual content arrived. Just one extra moment later on I obtained a cell phone phone from anyone who identified himself as calling from “NATO Professional,” inquiring if I needed aid. He was thorough in his inquiry but was ultimately joyful with my rationalization that I did not.

Christopher Null/Foundry

Notion specifies that you will only obtain 1 text, not two, and that the 1st mobile phone call should occur immediately after two minutes, not 3 but other than that—and the smaller flub from the cellular phone operator, who was obviously functioning for various diverse monitoring services—I was generally delighted with the reaction, despite the fact that things do appear to be to get a extended although to escalate compared to other monitoring companies. If my Vivint safety method goes off, the phone is usually ringing ahead of I’m out of my seat.

The third-technology starter package reviewed right here fees $149 and contains three sensors and a bridge (down from $199 in 2018). Notion isn’t just uncomplicated to get began with, it is also very affordable. The enterprise also a 5-sensor starter kit for $199 and an 8-sensor package sells for $279. 3-sensor expansion kits are available for $39 just about every, and the $10-per-month expert checking prepare feels reasonable. It’s well worth noting right here that very first-technology Idea products are no for a longer period supported in the Idea application, and that 3rd-generation sensors will not function with the 2nd-era bridge. You can, having said that, work next- and third-generation sensors with each other presented you invest in a third-generation bridge ($59).

Notion is not and never ever will be a basis for a strong protection operation, but for consumers with less complicated needs—and no curiosity in mucking close to with a dozen varieties of cameras, command panels, and several sensors—it can get the work performed. Expert checking ups the degree of safety without having introducing an onerous quantity of expense, or really nearly anything in the way of complexity.