Vivint

I've spoken with credible technicians that are both on the sales side, customer service and the actual installation technician. There was one girl that did the majority of the installation who was far from professional. She drilled holes in the wrong places of my doorframe. She said those were just little holes and that they were not a big deal. But it was my house and that was a big deal. And whenever she ran the wires in the attic to one of my cameras, she didn’t bother to wrap them along with the rafters and formers up there. She just threw the bundle up over like boxes of Christmas ornaments. We didn’t find that out until a few days later when I went up there to get stuff. With the front door, she didn’t chisel everything out properly and we were having problems with it or cracks with the door from her work.

We had a lot of various serious problems. I finally got ahold of the regional manager. I told that this could be fixed today or tomorrow. Their people can come and leave all of their equipment in my house and put it back later. I also told the regional manager about the girl who did the installation and he told me not to worry. It would be taken care of and that he would send out his best technician. The stuff that was messed up was corrected and I appreciated that. The customer service in getting it fixed was immediate.

I also have the garage door monitor which sometimes randomly stops working and that isn't very helpful. But I like being able to look at and check out my house. We live down in Florida so whenever a hurricane comes here and we evacuate, we can check on our house. Overall, we're happy with the system. It's good. They are still some hiccups but I know that it's still a relatively new technology. I have recommended Vivint to friends. I told them that if they are looking at alarms and cameras, they shouldn't push Vivint out. They should at least look and see what they have once. It's a technology that other companies don’t have.

The salesman promised us buybacks, but there was an aggravation trying to get the buyback out of our first company and my husband also had problems trying to get a buyback out of the second company. It took months, which didn’t leave a good taste in our mouths. But once we pushed the salesman out of the loop and dealt with the corporate support, we were able to get things resolved. It wasn't done quickly, but they finally took care of things and it is running smoothly now.

The quality of the system is good, but one of the issues we had with the Florida house was not good. We were in New York on a Saturday night and we got the call at 10:00 that the alarm was triggered. They said it was the motion detector. My neighbor came over and checked it out but didn’t call the police. A week later, we had the same incident. We also had an issue with the garage sensor. We got a phone call and they told us that our garage door was open, although it wasn’t. It was closed. So, we came back down to Florida and Vivint had a technician come to the house.

They wanted to charge us, but we said, “This is ridiculous. You have problems here.” They found out that the motion detector was not even connected in my house. It was somebody else’s house and we were getting the alarms based on the motion detector on somebody else’s home. We were alerted for someone else’s alarm three times. The solution for the garage door was we just had to disconnect the sensor.

In New York, a guy came to the door and said he was the district manager. He told me to call him if there were any problems. He said, “Yeah. Call me. Don’t bother going into the corporate. I'll get there right away. I'm local.” I called him twice because I had issues where the system wasn’t working with my thermostat. The keypad in the house wasn’t connecting with the thermostat. However, there was no way to contact him anymore and again, I had to go back to the corporate office. The system is good when it's working. I love the idea of being able to have the app open and close the doors. I like the touchpad for the door rather than having to use my key. I could have had it with my old company, but I was told that Vivint was gonna be cheaper, but it still remains to be seen because we've just gone through the buyout.

During the installation, I asked the installation team about different things and they were helpful. They set up a couple of motions sensors and door sensors so if the door is open, it will let me know. They also detect glass breakage if something breaks so they put several motions sensors in. But, they could not help me out with my 20-foot square shipping container that I am using as a workshop. I asked them if there was any way to put a motion sensor. I was told that because it is a metal shipping container, it would block the signal. I also asked them if they can put like a contact system outside of it but they still said no. They would not be able to do it. I told them that if they put a system on the inside, all they need is like a little lead wire off of it for the antenna, drill a small hole through the wall, stick the antenna wire through the wall, then put a little silicon around it. It should go ahead and work for them.

I was told that they will talk to their technical support group and see if that would work. I never heard back from them so I got one building in my property that’s not protected. But I have installed my own security cameras inside and outside to help bolster, that I can bring them up on my phone and see what’s going on if I get an alert. I was originally very satisfied with their service but right now, not so much. I am having problems with my control pad in the house and if I leave the house, it’ll beep once at me. It won’t say whether it’s armed away. I have to reset it, disarm it then rearm it, and then it’ll say, “System armed away”. I also keep getting error messages on one of my key fobs. It says that it’s low in battery so I put new batteries on it but it still says that. I don’t know whether the key fob is going bad or not registering.

When I called Vivint, they told me that our panel is obsolete and when they get someone in the area, they’ll come by and will upgrade our panel. Since then, I haven’t heard back from them. However, when we get to speak to an actual person, it is not too bad. They try to help and they are very courteous and very professional. But I gotta go through several different prompts to get to an actual person on the phone and that could be improved a bit better. They called me a while back though saying they received an alarm when I left the house. I didn’t have my back door secured properly and when we had some strong winds, it blew the door open. I have their phone app on my phone that tells me that the back door is open and that it needs to be checked out.

I was about five minutes away so I went by and the police were just pulling up. They asked me if I wanted them to check the house. I told them I just forgot to shut the door real tight. They came in with me, no one was in the house and nothing was missing. They were prompt in contacting the police and I got a notice almost immediately on my phone. I also received a follow-up phone call from their reps about 30 seconds after I got the phone message. Their service, in that aspect of it, has been good.

The first installer was a lady who was very pleasant and she asked for permission before cutting into my wall. She asked me where I wanted it. She was very engaging and asked a lot of questions. Then we had to coordinate a follow-up appointment for my smoke detector. I was in the process of working on installing my doorbell and I didn’t exactly get what I wanted but I wasn’t unhappy with what I got. I have a two-story, and they wanted to do one thing, and I wanted to do another. It all centered around my doorbell but I finally said fine.

At the end of July, I had a problem with my equipment. After being on hold for a very long time, I finally got someone. After multiple calls, we couldn’t fix it and the lady said we needed to add something. I told her I didn’t need any more equipment and if we couldn’t get it resolved, then we need to take it out and I need to cancel my service. After three calls, I finally got a guy and he said he needed to push a software update. After they did that, my online cameras still weren’t working. So, I called back and the girl I talked to said that I was gonna need new cameras for upstairs and downstairs. I was going out of town so I would be getting the equipment after I get back.

I was delaying on installing it but in the meantime, I happened to check my bank account and more money than my normal monthly bill came out of my checking account. Vivint billed me without telling me that they were charging me for shipping to mail me the equipment. I told them I didn’t agree to it so they made it right. I wasn’t asking for anything other than for them to remove the charge because I should’ve known about it in the first place and I should not have been billed in the first place for their equipment because they pushed the software update, and it was their equipment. Aside from that, I haven’t had any problems and I love the new cameras that I got. They are great. Vivint has always been good and they were very responsive.

However, during the first week, my eight-year-old accidentally set off the alarm system when nobody was home and I tried calling in. I was in the middle of a major event at work and I had a lot of people around me. I was having a hard time hearing and the person that answered the phone was real short with me because I couldn't remember my secret password. It took all those ridiculous amount of effort to try to get into the system so I could get them to turn it off. I just needed somebody to help me get the system turned off so that my eight-year-old can stop flipping out at home alone but the rep just wasn't hearing it. So that wasn't a great experience. But apart from that, a few times that I've had to call in a service with some issues, they've been very timely and professional.

I use their smartphone feature all the time. It's fine but the internet connection sometimes create a problem to access it especially when we were travelling internationally. If somebody was ringing our doorbell and we wanted to see who it was, it would be super difficult to be able to pull up the video and use that wireless interaction with them while we were in a foreign country. When I'm not home and my kids are in the house, I can spy on them and make sure that they are where they said they are. My house was in close proximity to the house next door to me. My neighbor had some vandalism and some of the stuff that happened was caught on my cameras so that has been an unexpected bonus for having the package. I've had Vivint service for over a year now and so far, my experience with them has been great. In fact, I have recommended them to family, friends and neighbors.