Why You Can Trust CNET SimpliSafe Expands Live Guard Service With New Home AI Features
SimpliSafe is rolling out AI detection for friendly faces if you use its home monitoring. Here's exactly what to expect from the new service.
SimpliSafe's new friendly face tech is currently rare, but don't be surprised if you start seeing it more often.
SimpliSafe's professional home monitoring services, one of the best options for DIY home security systems, are receiving an AI upgrade to help tell friend from foe. The outdoor security camera technology, unveiled Tuesday, will allow you to save profiles and improve the accuracy of its monitor response.
These AI additions complement SimpliSafe's 24/7 Live Guard package. In many home-monitoring services, home-monitoring workers are alerted when a contact sensor is tripped or a similar signal is sent. SimpliSafe's approach works a little differently. The company's guards get camera alerts when an armed system recognizes a human-shaped something. That allows guards to peer through the camera's live view and see what's going on before any contact sensors are tripped (or windows broken, etc.). Now they're getting help from AI recognition, too.
Eyes on the outdoors
With a close-enough look, SimpliSafe's new AI will be able to recognize and ignore friendly faces while the system is armed.
The AI-powered service applies to compatible outdoor cameras that are part of SimpliSafe systems. When the system is armed and watching, these outdoor cameras -- ideally focused on key spots like porches, paths, drives and doors -- use basic object recognition to identity when people draw close.
This new AI service adds another layer of recognition, allowing users to save specific profiles identifying certain people's faces. These profiles can help identify family, friends and frequent visitors of all kinds. The cameras will ignore these friendly faces, cutting down on unnecessary guard alerts.
The new AI option will arrive later in 2024 as part of SimpliSafe's ongoing Fast Protect approach to home security. Currently, SimpliSafe is working on bringing the technology to select customers in an Early Access program, which means you may be hearing from it if you have a SimpliSafe system with a connected camera.
Profiles, privacy and more
SimpliSafe is one of the first companies we've seen to combine AI facial recognition with professional home monitoring centers.
SimpliSafe isn't the only home security brand to offer friendly face recognition, but it's currently rare. Notably, Google's Nest Aware service also offers the ability to create face profiles for family or friends for products like the Nest Video Doorbell, although this does not require professional home monitoring or give guards a heads-up like SimpliSafe.
For privacy fans, this kind of AI technology is a give-and-take. On one hand, creating friendly face profiles of your friends and family may make some people uneasy. You typically need to get someone's permission as well as trust in the security company to manage facial identification data. And some states are embracing laws that can make this tech difficult or impossible to use -- Illinois users, for example, can't make Nest Aware face profiles.
On the other hand, this kind of AI from SimpliSafe also decreases the times that home monitoring people have to look through your cams at friends or family. That's a nice privacy benefit if you trust SimpliSafe with face data, and SimpliSafe gets regular high marks for its encryption approaches.
As AI continues to enter the home security world in new and interesting ways, we expect to see face recognition as a more common part of security subscriptions. SimpliSafe is well-positioned to lead AI advances like this -- and remember, you don't need to use this tier of professional monitoring if you'd rather stick to self-monitoring instead.
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