Shelter · Gear Review
Best DIY Alarm Systems. Decide who answers first.
If you want a monitoring center answering, SimpliSafe is our pick: no contract, cellular backup on its monitored plans, a 24-hour backup battery, and the top owner score with monitoring in Consumer Reports' survey. If you will answer it yourself, start with Abode. Here is how four systems compare.
At a glance: SimpliSafe
Strengths
- Professional monitoring with no contract and no cancellation fee.
- The base station runs up to 24 hours on its backup battery.
- Its monitoring holds a UL listing for the industry's alarm validation standard.
- Sensors for smoke, carbon monoxide, water, and freezing, alongside the burglary sensors.
Limitations
- Cellular backup works only on a professional monitoring plan.
- Monitoring is among the pricier DIY plans, and prices rose in 2025.
- Without a plan, SimpliSafe describes the system as working as a siren.
The verdict
Four systems, sorted by who answers.
Our alarm systems handbook starts with one question: when it goes off, who answers? These picks follow that question.
Best with monitoring
SimpliSafe
A staffed center and cellular backup on a no-contract plan, a 24-hour backup battery, and a broad range of hazard sensors.
Kits ~$130 to $250
Best if you answer it yourself
Abode Smart Security Kit
Free app alerts with no plan, and monitoring you can add by the month. Short battery backup.
Kits ~$100 to $240
Monitoring with cellular backup, for less
Ring Alarm
Monitoring and cellular backup on the Ring Pro plan for about $200 a year. Without a plan, it is a siren with no alerts.
Kits ~$200 to $330
No fee required
Eufy Home Alarm Kit
Free app alerts, and optional dispatch plans through a monitoring partner from about $50 a year.
Kits ~$160
Affiliate disclosure: New World Survival earns a small commission on qualifying Amazon purchases at no cost to you. This helps us cover operating costs and keep building new content. We only recommend gear we would put in our own kit. Commission never decides a recommendation.
Why the pick wins
Monitoring you can trust and leave.
For a household that wants a staffed center answering, SimpliSafe checks the boxes our handbook lists, and it lets you walk away at any time.
01
No contract
SimpliSafe states no contracts and no cancellation fees. Start, change, or stop monitoring as your life changes.
02
Keeps talking in an outage
On a monitored plan, the base station switches to cellular when the internet drops and runs up to 24 hours on its battery.
03
A validated call
Its monitoring is UL listed for ANSI/TMA-AVS-01, the standard for scoring how real an alarm is before calling police.
04
Owners rate it highest
In Consumer Reports' survey of more than 11,000 owners, SimpliSafe with professional monitoring scored highest of the systems reported.
Consumer Reports' owner survey put SimpliSafe with professional monitoring at 79, the highest score, ahead of Eufy and professionally monitored Ring at 72, with high marks for ease of use, setup, and value. (Quartz, reporting Consumer Reports) The Monitoring Association reported in 2025 that SimpliSafe's monitoring earned a UL listing for the AVS-01 validation standard. (The Monitoring Association)
Tom's Guide names Abode its best overall system, for its easy install and broad smart-home support. (Tom's Guide) We agree it is the better buy if you will answer the alarm yourself, and it is our pick for that below. For a monitored household, SimpliSafe's longer battery backup and top owner score with monitoring put it first.
The picks
Four systems, four ways to answer.
All four install without tools beyond a screwdriver and adhesive strips, and all four move with you.
Best with monitoring
SimpliSafe
SimpliSafe sells kits built around a base station with a 100-decibel siren, a keypad, and wireless sensors, and a broad range of add-ons: glass-break, water, freeze, its own smoke and carbon monoxide detector, and a panic button. Its monitored plans run from 76 cents a day for Standard to $1.10 a day and up for plans that add video verification, with no contract. (SimpliSafe)
The thing to understand is the outage behavior. SimpliSafe says cellular backup works only with a professional monitoring plan, and during a power outage every system can be armed and disarmed only at the keypad, to save battery. (SimpliSafe) Without a plan, SimpliSafe describes the system as working as a siren, and phone alerts need at least its paid self-monitoring plan. If you will not pay anything monthly, Abode or Eufy fit better.
SimpliSafe also sells a listener that hears your existing smoke and CO alarms and passes the alert to the monitoring center. Keep the alarms themselves; the listener only carries the message.
Specifications
Best if you answer it yourself
Abode Smart Security Kit
Abode's free tier sends alerts to your phone with no plan at all, which is exactly what a self-monitoring household needs. When you want a staffed center, Abode's Pro plan adds 24/7 monitoring and cellular backup for about $27 a month or $246 a year, and Abode calls its plans completely contract-free. (Abode)
The kit includes a hub, a door and window sensor, a motion sensor, and a key fob, and Abode lists alerts for tampering and for radio interference. It works with Apple HomeKit and with Z-Wave and Zigbee devices, which is why Tom's Guide favors it for smart homes.
Two trade-offs. The hub connects to your router by cable, and Abode rates its battery backup at up to five hours, far short of SimpliSafe's or Ring's. Two-step verification is available through an authenticator app; turn it on. (Abode)
Specifications
Monitoring with cellular backup, for less
Ring Alarm (2nd generation)
Ring's eight-piece kit includes the base station, a keypad, four contact sensors, a motion detector, and a range extender. Ring Pro adds 24/7 professional monitoring and cellular backup for about $200 a year, less than SimpliSafe's or Abode's comparable plans. The base station has a 104-decibel siren and up to 24 hours of battery backup. (Ring)
Read this before buying it to self-monitor: Ring says that without a plan the alarm works as a siren, armed from the keypad, and sends no notifications. (Ring) Its smoke and CO listener is the exception, sending phone alerts without a plan over Amazon Sidewalk, where Sidewalk coverage reaches.
Ring has required two-step verification on every account since 2020. Separately, it settled with the FTC in 2023 over employee access to customer videos and security lapses that let hackers take over accounts. (FTC)
Specifications
No fee required
Eufy 5-Piece Home Alarm Kit
A HomeBase 2, a keypad, a motion sensor, and two entry sensors, with free app alerts and no monthly fee required. Eufy also sells a smoke and CO listener and a water and freeze sensor. Consumer Reports' owner survey named Eufy its top self-monitored system. (House Digest via Yahoo, reporting Consumer Reports)
If you want someone else answering, Eufy now sells optional plans through its partner Noonlight: a tap-for-dispatch plan for about $50 a year, and 24/7 monitoring of your sensors with emergency dispatch for about $100 a year, the least expensive monitoring here. (Eufy) Eufy does not state battery backup or cellular for the HomeBase 2 in this kit, so plan as if alerts stop when your power or internet does.
Eufy's U.S. distributors settled with New York State in 2025 over camera video that was not end-to-end encrypted. (National Law Review) That case concerned cameras, not this kit, but turn on two-step verification all the same.
Specifications
What owners actually say
After the first false alarm.
These patterns come from the makers' owner forums, a large consumer-review site, and Consumer Reports' owner survey. A theme appears here only when more than one owner raises it independently.
SimpliSafe
Owners consistently describe setup as easy, which matches Consumer Reports' survey.
The recurring complaints are long support waits, billing and cancellation disputes, and false or low-battery alarms raised in SimpliSafe's own forum. Some owners also ask for a bigger backup battery for long outages.
Ring Alarm
Consumer Reports' survey credits Ring for ease of use, setup, and how easily the system grows.
In Ring's community forum, owners report contact sensors draining batteries quickly or dropping offline. In October 2025, an Amazon Web Services outage interrupted Ring services (Newsweek), a reminder that cloud systems share the cloud's bad days.
Abode
Reviewers like the install and the smart-home reach. One reviewer, testing Abode's iota kit, found its app less streamlined and reliable than some others it tested. We found too little owner discussion to report wider patterns.
We did not find enough owner discussion of the Eufy alarm kit to report patterns.
The one thing to know
"No plan" means different things at each company.
With no subscription, Abode and Eufy still send alerts to your phone. Ring sends none; it is a siren you arm at the keypad. SimpliSafe describes the system as working as a siren, and sells a low-cost self-monitoring plan for phone alerts. That one difference decides whether a system is any use while you are away.
If you plan to self-monitor, buy a system that alerts you for free. If you plan to pay for monitoring, compare the plan, not the kit, because over three years the plan costs more. Our alarm handbook walks through the choice.
How they fail, what they cost
Three years of monitoring, at list prices.
Plan fees only, before equipment, on each maker's 24/7 monitored plan.
Ring Pro: about $600
Billed yearly. Monitoring plus cellular backup.
Abode Pro: about $740
Billed yearly. Monitoring plus cellular backup. Free self-monitoring if you skip it.
SimpliSafe: about $830 to $1,200
Standard at 76 cents a day, or Core at $1.10 a day with video verification.
Eufy: about $300
On its Plus plan, billed yearly. Or nothing, if you answer the alerts yourself.
What wears out
Sensor batteries are the routine failure. A sensor with a dead battery is a door the system no longer watches, and low batteries can set off false alarms. Turn on low-battery alerts and keep spares of each type your sensors take.
What to do in an outage
Know which of your alerts depend on the internet. A small uninterruptible power supply on the modem and router keeps a self-monitored system's alerts flowing through short outages, and matters most for Abode, whose hub runs on its own battery for about five hours.
What we didn't pick
And who should skip these.
Kits sold "plan required"
Some DIY kits, including ADT's Blu starter kit, are listed as plan required. A low kit price is the start of a subscription, not the total cost. Read that line on the listing before anything else.
Monitoring with a multi-year contract
Some providers still tie equipment discounts to long contracts; Frontpoint, for example, discounts its equipment in exchange for a three-year monitoring contract. (Quartz, reporting Consumer Reports) None of these picks requires a multi-year contract. If a salesperson at the door asks you to sign today, the FTC's Cooling-Off Rule generally gives you three business days to cancel.
Who should skip these picks
If you only want to know when one door or window opens, a standalone door alarm costs a fraction of a system. If your doors still have weak locks, start with a deadbolt; an alarm reports the door a lock would have kept shut.
Where it fits in your readiness
A messenger, after the locks.
An alarm system belongs in the Sustain tier: worth adding once the doors and locks are sound.
Hurricane and wildfire evacuations
A monitored system with cellular backup keeps watching an empty house while you are away, for as long as the power holds or up to a day on battery after it fails, and water and freeze sensors warn you of damage before you return.
Power outages
Battery backup ranges from about five hours to a full day across the picks that state it. Check yours, and back up the router if you self-monitor.
Civil disruption
When things are unsettled nearby, an alarm that someone answers, and a siren that sounds even offline, is the layer that tells you a door has been opened.
Maintenance
Ten minutes, once a month.
- Open each door and window with the system in test mode and confirm every sensor reports.
- Check the app for low-battery warnings and replace those batteries now, not later.
- Test your smoke and CO alarms on the same day, and confirm any listener passes the alert along.
- If you pay for monitoring, confirm the plan is active and your call list is current.
- Confirm two-step verification is on, and remove codes for anyone who no longer needs one.