Whenever I visit the online store, it immediately takes me to a “build your system” type of wizard after clicking on the starter kit product pic. Similarly, the app only has accessories but not a full kit available to purchase. I do see both $99 & $132 packages available on Amazon with the latter also including a Cam v3. These both reference “6mo free monitoring” or something to that effect.
Have they actually started shipping the full DIY kits yet? And is there one that doesn’t include the keypad?
The email did say it was App-only for now. Looks like they sold out of the kits on the app.
Honestly it might be cheaper/better to do it through the build your own system on the website anyway.
- With the kit you are paying extra money for the keypad (normally $20).
- With the build your own system you may be required to get the monthly subscription ($10), but you can always cancel it right away if you don’t like it or don’t want it.
- So either way, you are either paying for $20 you don’t need (Keypad), or $10 you don’t need/want), so the subscription is the cheaper way anyway, and if you test it out and know for sure you don’t want it, you can just cancel it, whether the first month or the first day. Who knows, you MIGHT even get a prorated credit back for whatever time you didn’t use…but the point is that it might be cheaper to do it that way anyway.
It doesn’t surprise me the kits sold out already though. Honestly I am somewhat tempted to buy a second kit/hub sometime when they go back on sale. I could use a backup hub and another keypad.
Yeah, my Sense v1 setup has been very reliable… but there have been a handful of occasions where it’s been necessary to physically remove the cam piggyback bridge from the rear USB port to re-initialize it properly. Not even a hard power kill seems to fix this. Either physically disconnecting the bridge briefly or updating the Cam Pan firmware resolves. Pretty sure the most recent cloud outage caused it. No event detections from several motion/contact sensors associated with (1) particular bridge have been logged since 03/30. Batteries are all fresh too. Hoping that Sense v2 with a dedicated hub eliminates some of these quirks as well as the brownout/undervoltage MAC loss defect of the v1 sensors.
Since I’m going to be onsite at my parents’ (where all of this is an issue) in a couple weeks, I might just get the $99 kit from Amazon. Do those kits actually force you to subscribe to monitoring or is the subscription -vs- DIY paradigm a function of the app during setup? Put another way, is there something unique about the subscription-free kits via the app that un-tethers them from monitoring?
I have a bunch of V1 sensors too, and when I switched them all over to the new Hub, everything was way more stable and reliable. I used to experience similar issues with the old v1 bridge. Now they are good though.
When I got my HMS system a year ago, it didn’t automatically activate the subscription for me. I had to manually activate it, I think by entering the redemption code that came with it. I activated all my hardware without the subscription and left it off for a couple of weeks using my new equipment without it for a while. Eventually I activated it though. Toward the end of last year or early this year I heard some people saying that the subscription they signed up for when they purchased it was automatically activating a couple of weeks after purchase, but I think Jimmy looked into it and had that changed. So I can’t say for sure how it will go with your purchase. I suspect the kit you order from Amazon will come with a voucher that includes 6 months of the monitoring service and that you enter the code to get that. You can still cancel the subscription early if you want, but you won’t get a refund for it since they discounted the equipment to be included with the service in this case. You can probably refuse to ever redeem the subscription though, and like I said, you can always cancel it…but you’re also welcome to use it for those 6 months since it’s not going to cost you anything extra or save you anything by canceling it early in the case of the 6 month or yearly subscription bundles.
Yeah… I recall the v1 contact sensors can be associated with the sense v2 hub. Offhand, can the v1 motion sensors also work with the v2 hub? Can’t seem to find an FAQ since the out-of-stock situation redirects me to the build wizard instead of the starter kit itself.
Yes, The V1 motion sensors also work well with the V2 hub. 
I have those too.
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My v1 stopped working awhile ago. Looks like (March 18-19) It still has all the sensors paired to it. Noticed it’s blinking yellow/blue. No matter what I do it doesn’t stop blinking and doesn’t send alerts. Did you ever hear back from support?
Support responds with “Those are no longer supported…upgrade to V2. Have a nice day!”
To which I would reply, show me where I can purchase without a subscription (or having to cancel) and I’m on it. 
otherwyze have a nice day.
Thanks,
José
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Yes, they never seem to think anyone would want to buy the hardware without the subscription. There is the ubiquitous reply of soon it will be available without HMS.
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I’ve been in the same boat since that time. I was able to resolve my own locally using option (1) below. My parents are about 500 miles away and the cam is in a dangerous location for them to service. I will be resolving that during an upcoming visit. The interesting thing is that their sensors no longer show offline, but they haven’t registered any new events since 3/30. Haven’t been able to get any eyes on due to high placement of this cam for better signal reach.
All of that said, only two things have ever resolved this status for me:
-
Removing the cam piggyback sense v1 hub & re-inserting it after power cycling the cam.
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Updating the cam firmware. This seems to reinitialize in a way that revives the sense v1 hub.
If neither of those things do the trick for you, it’s possible there is corruption somehow. You might be able to simply delete them all from your setup and redeploy… 
And yes I know that reeks of Micro$oft 
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Yay! Thanks for your suggestions.
Option 1 worked for me. I swear I had already tried it but this time I wait overnight before plugged the v1 bridge back in to the camera. No more blinking lights.
All (except for 3) of my v1 sensors are now working.
The 3 (of 9) sensors happen to be the ones in the garage. (2 garage doors and a regular door in the garage). Red light does not flash to indicate signal was sent to bridge. Does not appear to be battery related. I’ll test some more tomorrow. I have some unused sensors from another kit.
Thanks,
José Hernandez
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Roger that… And even when the sense bridges are in the process of restoring, they still flicker for several minutes after reinserting them I have noticed. Eventually, however, they do come back into service… but they make you sweat!
I also wanna say that unplugging/reinserting the sense bridge and THEN power cycling the cam works to resolve this situation as well.
Glad you’re on the road to recovery!
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It’s millennial mentality… Less ownership and more rentals / subscriptions.
Another illustration is the concept of owning blu-ray or DVD discs. I get that streaming is more convenient than having to feed a disc player, but anything you purchase from Amazon or other streaming company isn’t really yours if your subscription lapses. That concept of ownership implies perpetual subscription which of course is viewed as bedrock revenue stream.
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It’s more a gigatech mentality \ business design borne well before the millennium in the burgeoning days of software and connectivity. NCR, IBM, Microsoft, Apple. All realized the long term residual revenue stream was in the software. The hardware was just the gateway to control access to that software which could be monetized in licenses and subscriptions.
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Well, of course you are expanding the argument here and I don’t dispute what you have described. I could expand it further to discuss fiat currency, the federal reserve, and how we are basically renting the income we believe is ours. That takes us back over a century…
Deeply embedded technology also introduced the means of greater stealth control without even the need for debate about the ethics regarding same. It empowered the little totalitarians in many. And now I have gone far enough off topic… 
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Not arguing, agreeing with the premise of the model being discussed. Is that offensive?
Perhaps you are reading it with some underlying emotion affecting your perception.
There are plenty of arguments to be had. But if I wanted one I would just ring my ex.
No, I think you are misunderstanding me here. I agreed with your input. No emotion / offense whatsoever underpinning… Was only adding onto & developing it.
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Perhaps I was the one who misinterpreted then.