![]() This is fairly standard as far as professional security systems go. On the control panel, you're mostly limited to arming your system, checking camera feeds and device states and activating various routines (such as locking your door and turning off all the lights). This is the primary problem with the system as a whole: You can't rely on any one of these control centers to meet all your needs. The center of ADT's whole system is the control panel… and the app. I was impressed with ADT's customer service responsiveness.ĪDT's connected thermostat can adjust the temperature to your preferences. When my technician accidentally wired my thermostat to send out heat after the temperature was turned down, I called the number he left, and he was able to help within a few hours. Still, I only mentioned my intention to play with the system after the 1-2-3-4 code had been set, so it seems unlikely that my comments affected the initial setup, which was the most troubling part of the installation.Īgain, many of my criticisms here are not of the individual installers who helped me but of the company procedures that are - or aren't - in place. It's possible that my presence as a reviewer changed my experience. … Upon your recommendation that you would play with the system yourself so you could determine how user-friendly the system is, the ADT team did not go too deep into the demo or into the change of the passcode once they had left." According to the company, reps usually "learn the customer's requested four-digit passcode into the system for them and instruct them on how to change it. When I asked ADT about this practice, it said it was not standard. I was neither required nor advised to change this passcode later considering how popular 1-2-3-4 is as a four-digit passcode, this felt irresponsible. When one of the installers helped explain the system to me, he set 1-2-3-4 as my passcode. Testing alarms and pinging monitoring services were much less involved for both Vivint and Xfinity - both were brief and quiet.įinally, and most seriously, the installation did not encourage good passcode security. My home is over 3,000 square feet and two stories, but even on a separate floor, my father had to step outside to take a phone call, and my 3- and 5-year-old boys shut themselves in their room and covered their ears for the duration of the testing. About 15 minutes at the end of the process required testing incredibly loud alarms for each device in the system. ![]() For liability reasons, someone must stay in the house during setup, which is typical for professional security installations. The second issue with installation was its intrusiveness. One key install element is setting a passcode, which can be used on the central hub and tablet to disarm the system. In short, it took less time for Vivint to install many more devices. Vivint's system took only a bit over seven hours total to install and included almost all the same devices ADT provided, plus eight extra door/window sensors, a second mounted outdoor camera, a car monitor, an external hard drive for video backup and a handful of extra sensors of various sorts. That might not seem unusual, but let's compare it with a competitor for a moment. We decided on the array of devices to install in about an hour, and the remaining eight hours were just spent on setup. The sales reps arrived at 8 a.m., and the technician finished his work just after 5 p.m. The first problem was the length of time it took. But the installation experience was far worse than, say, Vivint's - the system I tested only a few weeks before ADT. They were also responsive to my questions and requests, such as angling cameras in specific ways. The three ADT employees who came to my house were polite and professional. For this review, I wanted my setup to include at least one of every type of device - which resulted in an installation of a similar scale to what most customers might get, but not of a similar makeup, as I'll discuss later. Once you figure out what you want to be installed, technicians set it up for you. Like many other home security companies, ADT sends professionals to your house to help determine the best setup for your needs.
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