Customer Reviews

GE Simon 3 Wireless Security System

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Well worth the money for the system and can be monitored by yourself for no monthly fee. I bought this system about 1 year ago for my apartment. The instructions leave a lot to be desired. That is why I gave it a 4 star. Written in Engineerese--- YOU have to figure out what they were telling you. Find someone that's set up one before so you don't wind up pulling out all your hair. If I had to install the same system in my place again, I could probably manage it in under an hour ( I have 5 sensors ). I bought a Tracfone with a one year subscription for about $100. and programmed the system to call me silently. Saves me from having to pay monitor fees and since it is silent, I can respond within just a few minutes and see who has walked into my place or opened a window. Well worth the money for the peace of mind. Hope this helps someone looking for a home security system.

I am on my second Simon 3 and I have the same problem as with the first one. After a couple of months the voice prompts which announce which sensor is open, alarm, etc starts announcing the wrong location. Then the clock cannot be set because the hour announce is gibberish. I have the GSM cellular model and I am concerned that the corrupt voice data will not alert the call center with the correct issue that may arise. The Simon 3 has problems. I was told that the only fix for the first install was to replace it. At my cost. The first one started going bad after one year. This one only took 2 months to do the same thing. Basically speaking, it doesn't work.

I have a doctoral degree in engineering and I am not easily lost by complexity and incoherent instructions - then there is Simon 3. The only reason I could think that any consumer electronics company would make a home security installation guide so totally unreadable is that they are counting on people who have dropped a lot of money on it to be very patient and work their way through it while scaring off any would-be home invaders from figuring out how it all works. Eventually, Simon 3 makes sense but first comes hours of reading engineering-level setup guides and trying random stuff until it (sort of) makes sense. This is made worse by each sensor having its own confusing and conflicting installation guide. I strongly advise anyone who tries to set this system up for the first time to use a really good pair of earplugs for when the alarm goes off and none of the access codes works, it is a very painful experience pulling it apart and yanking the battery wires off and starting over. It has a billion clever features inside it that some electrical engineer thought of but was unable to describe in functional terms that a home user would understand and thus use. Pity, it is great technology, just not quite ready for consumer use. I was also bummed that when they say "wireless" they mean wireless sensors, not wireless internet; you have to plug Simon 3 into an old fashioned Ethernet cable to attach it to your router.