Vivint Smart Home

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.

But I have a lot of problems with the remotes working consistently and lasting. And every time a remote stops functioning correctly, I have to pay $50 to get a new one instead of it just being replaced as a standard service. So that’s pretty frustrating. Also, I’ve had to replace several remotes and the newest one only lasted for about a year. Plus, I found that if you’ll put in a new battery in a new remote, two days later, it says the battery’s low again. So, the problem is with the remote itself, not the battery. I’ve run through all my remotes, too, and I’m to the point now where I’m gonna have to send another $50 to replace a remote so that I have one that works without setting the alarm off because when the remote says it has a little battery, it sets off the alarm to notify you to change it.

But other than the remote, I’ve had the exact same monitor which is a touch screen and I like it. It tells me the weather and all of that stuff, so that’s kinda neat. I like that there’s a panic option on the remote as well, though I feel like the images on the buttons of the new remotes could be a little bit better. The lock and the unlock buttons look very similar, so it’d be easy to hit the wrong button.

This last time that I called, they told me to pull that battery out, which is not easy to do. I've got arthritis in my hands. I said I was not gonna do it. The representative said she would send someone and I told her I didn't wanna pay the fee. It's like 100 years ago when we had regular phone and we had to call service people in. If it was your fault, you had to pay a fee. But if it was the equipment, you didn't. They did waive the fee and she was very nice about it. She did not make me feel like she was doing me this big favor.

The guys are also great when they come out. They replaced the doorbells both times. This last guy told me that it was a newer one and it shouldn't have the problem that I was having, and everything's good now. Other than the fact that we've had the doorbell replaced twice, everything about the system is fine. The alarm goes off pretty good if I forget. If I set it then I walk out into the garage, it goes off. Generally, somebody calls from Vivint to see that everything's okay and that all seems fine. My husband goes out of town to work at the ranch and I like to set the alarm when he's not there. It makes me feel safer. That's the only time we really set it, when he's gone or when we're both gone.