
Notion home monitoring review: Smarter sensors, but limited control
Expert’s Score
Professionals
- Nevertheless very basic: anybody can get up and running in minutes
- The specialist checking selection expenditures only $10 for every thirty day period
- Some operational kinks have been ironed out in excess of the several years
Downsides
- Nevertheless no way to broaden the process to include things like cameras or other more sophisticated options
- Demands cumbersome often-on bridge to hook up to Wi-Fi
Our Verdict
Expert monitoring doesn’t precisely transform the game for Notion, but it does offer extra safety at a affordable cost.
Rate When Reviewed
$149.00
Ideal Prices Currently: Idea Starter Package (3 sensors and bridge)
Five-yr-previous Idea has become a completely mature member of the clever house community—to the issue in which Comcast acquired the business in 2020. Shockingly, Comcast by no means rolled Notion’s gadgets into its individual Xfinity stability giving, and the two security models keep on to run independently.
In simple fact, not like in the aftermath of most corporate acquisitions, Idea has ongoing to boost its offerings. Its newest addition: The Notion Professional monitoring support, which can preserve tabs on all your Idea gear for $10 for each thirty day period, with the initially 3 months offered as a cost-free demo.
This assessment is portion of TechHive’s in-depth protection of the most effective intelligent house programs.
Notion’s checking strategy is less costly than most, and which is in all probability intentional, mainly because Notion’s sensor products are less difficult than most. Notion’s components revolves completely all over its multifunction sensors, each individual of which will work as a motion-detecting door/window sensor, a drinking water leak sensor, a fire/CO alarm relay that listens for the sound of an alarm likely off, and a temperature/freeze sensor. A plug-in bridge connects these sensors to your Wi-Fi network.

Notion’s entry-degree starter package (a few sensors and a bridge) prices just $149, with specialist checking out there as a incredibly cost-effective $10-for every-thirty day period option.
Notion
If a thing goes awry, you get a push notification to the Notion app on your phone. Almost nothing seems to have altered (at least not outwardly) about the sensors or the bridge considering the fact that the previous important update in 2018, and even the app seems to search pretty much similar.
I can say that the setup system and procedure are both equally streamlined and more secure than in the earlier. Prior experiences with Idea often finished up with broken battery tabs, crashing applications, and vanishing community connections, but I encountered none of individuals troubles this time close to. Setup involves a quick scan of a QR code on the back of each sensor together with some standard in-app configuration, after which you are requested to select what the sensor is checking and the numerous sensor sorts you are enabling. (Each individual sensor can be set to keep an eye on as several or as handful of sorts of events as you’d like.)

Notion’s sensors are distinctive in that they can not only detect movement, but the presence of h2o, too. They can also listen for the seem of a smoke detector firing off.
Idea
I hardly ever encountered any operational issues during my testing—although h2o leak detection felt on the gradual facet, taking the sensor about a minute to figure out it was submerged in water right before it sent an inform.
As talked about earlier, what’s new with Notion is the Idea Pro skilled monitoring technique, which I subscribed to making use of a credit history card in the application. It’s important to notice that Notion Professional isn’t a person-dimension-suits-all. Various types of situations beget different types of responses, which you can uncover outlined on Notion’s web-site. The main change is that doorway or window sensors as very well as hearth alarm detection gatherings can be configured to notify unexpected emergency products and services, though water leaks and freeze warnings simply cannot.
I analyzed out Idea Pro by simulating a drinking water leak at Notion’s suggestion—so as to prevent obtaining the law enforcement present up at my door—and observed it worked typically as marketed on its website. A moment just after I obtained Notion’s push notification, I received a textual content notifying me of the leak. Following a further minute, a second text arrived. One particular a lot more moment later on I been given a mobile phone contact from someone who determined himself as contacting from “NATO Pro,” inquiring if I expected assist. He was thorough in his inquiry but was in the end happy with my clarification that I did not.

This little bridge connects Notion’s sensors to your Wi-Fi community.
Christopher Null/Foundry
Notion specifies that you will only get just one textual content, not two, and that the first phone get in touch with should come right after two minutes, not three but other than that—and the compact flub from the phone operator, who was evidently functioning for several various monitoring services—I was normally delighted with the response, though things do seem to be to take a long though to escalate as opposed to other checking solutions. If my Vivint safety procedure goes off, the cellphone is ordinarily ringing ahead of I’m out of my seat.
The third-era starter kit reviewed below prices $149 and involves three sensors and a bridge (down from $199 in 2018). Notion is not just effortless to get commenced with, it is also economical. The corporation also a 5-sensor starter package for $199 and an 8-sensor package sells for $279. 3-sensor enlargement kits are offered for $39 each and every, and the $10-per-thirty day period experienced checking plan feels truthful. It’s worthy of noting listed here that first-generation Idea products and solutions are no for a longer time supported in the Idea app, and that 3rd-era sensors will not do the job with the second-era bridge. You can, having said that, operate second- and 3rd-technology sensors collectively supplied you acquire a third-technology bridge ($59).
Idea is not and under no circumstances will be a basis for a robust security operation, but for customers with less difficult needs—and no fascination in mucking around with a dozen kinds of cameras, manage panels, and a variety of sensors—it can get the position completed. Professional monitoring ups the level of safety without the need of adding an onerous quantity of price, or definitely anything in the way of complexity.