Customer Reviews

Wireless Home Security System

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

What I liked:
- Price of the kit;
- Easy to install and operate;
- Integrated phone call unit;
- Range of the sensors;
- No false alarms;
- WIndow/door sensor can easily be modified to control two or more wired magnetic sensors. All you need to do is connect the new dispositives in serie with the existing one;
- I can call the control unity with my mobile phone and disarm the alarm before get home when I'm not with the remote control;
- My phone rings within 9 seconds after the alarm is triggered;
- The control unity saves a history with the data and zone of the 5 last times it was triggered;
- Works with 9V batteries;

What I dislike:
- Only one remote control;
- Not very loud. I can barely hear it outside my apartment if the front door and the room door (where it is installed) are closed; Things get better if I install it close the door, but this way someone can easily smash it or unplug the phone cable in a few seconds. I'd rather to have an external siren;
- Manual have two different procedures for remote operation of the alarm. The correct is the second one in the end of the manual where you should press a number + # to operate the control unity;
- Extra accessories (especially the remote control) can be expensive and difficult to find;
- Window/door sensor could be smaller;
- There is a smal screw in the back of the control unity that entered inside it through a smal hole the first time I opened it to insert the battery. It was a pain to remove it later;
- I'd like to have a keyboard outside home so that I can disarm the alarm without the remote control.
- I didn't discover how to disarm zones without deleting the sensor from the control unity database;

What was a plus (features not informed in the manual or in the product description):
- Window/door sensor have a glass break detector. It triggers the control unity with impact;
- WIndow/door sensor have a switch to locally play an alarm sound even if the control unity is not armed.
- Control unity have 4 wire connections in the back: 1 for external siren and 3 triggers (1 normally closed and 2 normally open for extra sensors);

*Updated on 02/26/2011*

After 6 months, the 9V battery of the motion sensors are over. The battery of the window/door sensors are still OK.


*Updated on 6/17/2011*
The control unity alerts you when the battery of the sensors are too low. If you don't fix, it can give false alarms.
I removed the batteries from the motion sensors and connected to the 9V output in the control unity. Everything is working fine and I don't need to replace the batteries every 6 months anymore.

I live in a not so great apartment complex. I have lots of nice toys that would be very easy to hock at a pawn shop. I got worried everytime I left my apt that I'd come back to find the flimsy door kicked in and my goodies gone. I was able to install this in minutes. Two screws for the main unit and one screen for the motion sensor (mounted right above my door but out of reach to the average person. Now I can leave my place without worry.

Pro: Very easy to install, keychain remote means no running to the keypad.

Con: I found the working range of the remote to be about 30ft (through several walls though). Its loud but without an external siren I'm counting on my immediate next door neighbors to respond to the alarm before they disable it. Some of the setup menus are a little clumsy, but you only have to do it once.

I'd buy it again in a heartbeat.

This review includes the Mace Home Security unit PLUS the optional external speaker.
I bought this system about a month ago. It came with both an instructional DVD plus written instructions. Both were fairly easy to follow. It may take a couple of tries on some of the items to be programed because it will revert back to the main menu if you take too long but this is not a problem. Making sure the detectors are properly set up is a must otherwise it won't arm properly. Make sure the door/window sensor is no more than 1/4 inch apart. If either is set up incorrectly it will tell you on the lcd to please close and gives the sensor number that's not correct (included motion detector is #1 and door/window sensor is #2). It's wise to double check phone number entries,delay times, etc upon completion. I have the door/window sensor located in my outdoor shop about 125 feet away past three walls from the main control and it works fine. I've used motion detectors before and they can be a problem since they will detect pets or even rodents. It's best to locate them in narrow areas (such as a narrow hallway) to minimize the risk of a non human triggering it. The alarm is very loud and can be heard throughout my house but since I live in a rural area and also wanted to protect my detached shop, I chose the external alarm. I would say that when set up it may have an effective range of about 200-250 feet, depending on neighborhood noises. This hopefully would scare away intruders but not sure my neighbors (about 900 feet away) would notice it.
My only complaint concerns the instructions. During my initial set up I had problems arming the system and had to call customer support. The instructions indicated that troubleshooting information was available on their website but there was none. I was able to get a troubleshooting guide from tech support and he indicated that hopefully this would be put on their website in the future.
Also, the instructions for the external siren indicated there are three different versions of software developed over the years that required different programing methods and the serial number of the main control unit indicated which version I had. This proved to be incorrect and again I had to call tech support to get the correct programing procedure. The good news is that Mick at tech support was excellent. He responded quickly to my calls and walked me through the couple of minor problems I had. For me, it's not just about a great price (I paid about $72 including shipping for the Home Security package and about $42 for the optional siren) but customer support and I rate both at A+. Again, my only problem was with the instructions and hopefully these will be corrected by Mace. I decided it still earned 5 stars based on the great support they provided.
I researched a number of alarm systems and found this unit to truly be an excellent buy based on it's quality and features and I'm very satisfied with it.

I didn't even take this system out of the package before I returned it. The phone cord plug and power plug are on the top of the unit, not behind it. My plan was to mount this on the wall near the door so it would look and act like any other home security system. It's difficult to do that with cords coming out of the panel in plain site of any intruder. All a potential burglar would have to do is unplug the phone cord and your system isn't calling you. I'll try to upload a photo so everyone can see what it really looks like.

This is a great product, does what it says.

The only con I can find is the out door siren does not seem to be loud enough but I guess we all want the Earth to shake when this thing goes off, I wrote company about it and nothing else will work with it and they said the only option was to have more than one siren, so I ordered another and put it in a different spot. Did the trick, works well.

OK, if your like me the most important thing is false alarms, I thought and thought about every other way this thing could be set off besides some one breaking in, I live alone, am 100% disabled, do not want to go to the store, come home to find my house surrounded by police (I have my unit set to call 911), guns draw, doors kicked in, well you get the picture.

So, I did some experiments, you will not believe what the weakest link is, drum roll please, lol, it's the motion detector, you see, the detector works very well, to well. I wanted to test it so I hooked up a night light next to the motion detector, opened the front door and let 1 fly in, shut door, turned night light on and waited to see what would happen, bingo, the fly did not even have to land on motion detector lens, it triggered the alarm with the fly buzzing around in the air, what people must understand is a bug crawling across lens, a fly or what ever will trigger any motion detector.

So in short to be 99.99% sure of no false alarms use door/window sensors only. Then you know for sure.

I reviewed several alarms and after reading all reviews I have to say I made a good choice.

Pros-
Easy to install and setup, one time fee and no monthly service plan.
Alarm will call my cell phone and 3 other numbers when triggered.
Works great, I haven't received any false alarms after a month.
You can arm or disarm with remote or central unit.
You can add several devices(zones) to the unit for more protection.
My door sets in from my frame slightly and the magnetic door/window alarm was slightly unaligned, but fortunately the alarm allowed for this little play.

Cons-
I wish you could arm individual zones without having to arm all zones at once, same with the test mode.
For those who need more audible, you will have to purchase the exterior audible/visual siren from a third party company or ask the manufacturer if they have that available. I did not see the exterior siren on the manufacturer's website. The exterior unit works off of 120v with battery backup.
Unit should come with a least 2 remotes, had to purchase extra remote from manufacturer.
Door/window unit is bulky.

Excellent product and well worth the money; received $48 per year discount from my insurance company as well ! Would have given it 5 stars if it had one additional feature. When you activate a sensor while the unit is armed, it should give a warning, continuous tone for the 20 seconds before full alarm. Sometimes we enter the home with groceries or something and go about our business forgetting that we have the security system on and trigger a full scale alarm. This minor improvement would make this unit unbeatable! I used several motion sensors in our home since we have 23 openings at ground level. Entire home security system with extra sensors costs less than $150; now go beat that!

Purchased this system for basic security and peace of mind. Our floorplan is an open one so the basic kit (one motion detector and one door/entry sensor were all we needed to pretty much cover 90% of the house. Had it for almost a year and had no false alarms to date and have used it repeatedly when leaving for weekend trips, etc. Tested it every time we came back by opening the door and not disarming immediately, setting it and walking in front of a sensor, etc. Calls our cell phones as programmed every time. No monthly fees, no worries. Perfect.

-clumsy menu but only one time settup required
-sound not loud enough to alert neighbors
-cool feature is that it dials 4 phones numbers
-had 2 false alarms in two months. one more and this goes in trash.
-very hard to judge the sensitivity/range of motion detector

I bought this product some time ago and when it works it works fine however the product has never really worked as it should have. The problem I have is the main alarm box has never worked when plugged into the wall but it dose work well on battery power I really only need to use it a couple times a week so I e-mailed the company and they simply said to plug it into the wall I told them that that was the problem but they never got back to me so if you don't mind buying all the batteries for this thing it dose work