Methodology
Our ratings come from hands-on testing, not spec sheets. Here's exactly what we buy, how long we test, and how we score — the process behind every review and comparison on this site.
We buy and set up the systems we cover — the same way a customer would. That means real hardware in real homes: base stations, sensors, cameras, video doorbells, smart locks, and monitoring plans. We do not rely on manufacturer demo units or loaner kits that could be cherry-picked.
Each system lives in a real home for a minimum of several weeks so we can judge day-to-day reliability, false-alarm behavior, battery life, app updates, and how monitoring actually responds when a sensor trips. Short "unboxing" impressions aren't a review.
The things that matter most only show up after week one: how often the motion sensor false-alarms on a sunny afternoon, whether the app nags you, and how fast a real monitoring dispatch happens at 2 a.m.
Every product is scored on five weighted criteria:
We combine the five criteria into a single score out of 10 (also shown as a 5-star rating for Google). A 9.0+ is exceptional, 8.0–8.9 is very good, 7.0–7.9 is solid with trade-offs, and anything below 7.0 has meaningful shortcomings we'll explain plainly. Scores are updated as products and prices change.
Manufacturers cannot pay for a better score, and no brand previews our verdicts before publication. When a provider pays us a referral fee, it never influences rankings — we disclose it clearly and explain our full policy in our editorial standards. If we get something wrong, we correct it and note the change.
Last updated July 12, 2026
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