Ooma Smart Security 4+

Water Alarm Saved My Tush !

I purchased several devices, only hooked up water alarm so far. Came home from a long crappy day. Looked at my cellphone, there was a voicemail……. it was from ..”Home”. I’m wondering what this is all about. I play voicemail and it’s from Ooma, telling me water was sensed in the basement. It dawns on me what’s happening, I let out a yell, run down to the basement to see my hot water heater leaking on floor. If I didn’t have alarm, I may not have gone down to basement for days, and then would have come down to an indoor swimming pool. It saved me from a lot of damage. I highly recommend it. You set it, and forget it, which I did. I forgot all about it, and it came through for me.

Exceptional Product & Poor customerservice service

I’ve had Ooma’s phone service almost since they started. The voice clarity has always been exceptional. The alarm system is just as good! It is simple and easy to use. Each component can be individually customized. My only concern is with customer service. Watch out! It is the Achilles heel of Ooma. Calls go overseas. Your explanation will be interrupt mid sentence to execute their prompts. They will make you jump through the same troubleshooting every time you call no matter what you say to them. Asking for higher level of support or for a supervisor will get you disconnected. I struggled to get higher level support. I couldn’t get there without going through a supervisor, and they again, ran me through the same troubleshooting. It took several days to activate a new base and the alarm system. I don’t think it’s a language barrier, just poor training and lack of independent thinking or judgement. The people act like robots, Ooma considers robo chat as 24 hour support. It is misleading. If that fails, you have to call during business hours to speak to someone.

At the domestic corporate level, they genuinely cared about my customer service experiences. I was pleased with their response to my emails. If Ooma resolves their customer service issue, they will be the best alarm system for the investment, and grow rapidly.

A product this good deserves proficient customer services to back it up.

Disappointed

No ability to add family members so they can use the app, not such a good mode/alert system, and no location detection capabilities. Everything is based on modes corresponding to timeframes. I want the system to alert me when I am not home, not only at a certain time each day. Fearing I wasted $ on multiple sensors and the upgraded Telo I was forced to buy. Especially now that the new “upgraded” ooma base station’s speaker doesn’t work now for some reason. My original Ooma Telo worked just fine for calls, the new one works fine for calls but the speaker won’t work for voicemail or audible alerts of a tripped sensor. Frustrated.

Not to mention the instructions that came with the sensors neglected to mention you have to press a pairing button on the base station to set up the sensors... had to call support to figure that out.

I fear this product isn’t going to be supported moving forward, as the app doesn’t even get updates often and is pretty much half-assed.

Developer Response ,

This is Anthony on the Product team at Ooma. Thanks for the feedback! Ever since we launched the app, you've always had the ability to log in with as many as 10 smart devices into the app. So, you and up to 9 of your family members can log in. In addition, you can add your family members as phone, SMS, and email contacts.

Location-based geofencing is coming soon, so I hope that will improve your experience. We'll send out an announcement when it's available.

Regarding pairing, you should only use the pairing button in the mobile app for pairing Home Security sensors. The pairing button on the back of the base station is not intended for this purpose. I apologize for the confusion from the support team. We have informed them of this clarification.

Regarding your Telo speaker, please make sure that your volume is turned up to hear voicemail and sensor alerts. If you are still experiencing any problems, please contact us at report-an-ooma-home-problem@ooma.com. We've been releasing app fixes and updates about once a month or even more frequently. Your feedback helps us make the product better, so thanks for that!