The Cove Protect ($284 as tested) joins the growing list of DIY home security systems that offer professional monitoring. This customizable solution uses a 7-inch color touch-screen hub to provide a cellular connection to a 24-hour monitoring center and to all of your installed sensors. It installs in minutes and offers a choice of flexible pricing plans, and components are competitively priced. Additionally, it turned in speedy response times in our tests. It’s a solid DIY system, but it doesn’t offer quite as many add-on components as our Editors’ Choice award winner, the SimpliSafe Home Security System.
System Configurations and Pricing
As with Blue by ADT and SimpliSafe, Cove offers both preconfigured kits and a build-your-own system option that you can customize online. It starts with the brains of the system, a 7-inch touch-screen panel base unit that measures 4.5 by 9.1 by 1.0 inches (HWD) and costs $184.
The panel can be mounted on a wall or placed on a flat surface using the included picture frame stand. It has Home and Call buttons, as well as a microphone and speaker array for two-way voice communication with the monitoring center. Inside are a cellular radio that uses AT&T’s network to connect to the monitoring center, a rechargeable backup battery that gives the panel 24 hours of power in the event of an outage, an 84dB siren, and a proprietary wireless radio that connects to the sensors. Missing are the Wi-Fi and Z-Wave radios that you get with Blue by ADT and the Honeywell Smart Home Security Starter Kit.
Our review system cost $284 and includes the panel, three door/window sensors, a motion sensor, and a key fob. The door/window sensors are installed using double-sided tape and measure 2.3 by 1.2 by 0.5 inches for the main component, and 2.3 by 0.6 by 0.5 inches for the magnetic strip. They’re powered by two CR2032 batteries and are pre-paired with the panel before shipping. They cost $15 each, which is right in line with pricing from Blue by ADT and Simplisafe, both of which charge $14.99 per sensor.
The $30 Cove motion sensor measures 3.5 by 2.3 by 1.7 inches and is powered by a single CR123 battery. It’s also installed using double-sided tape. At $30, it’s priced similarly to SimpliSafe ($29.99) and Blue by ADT ($24.99).
The Cove key fob measures 2.5 by 1.5 by 0.5 inches and has arm, disarm, stay, and SOS (panic) buttons. It’s powered by one CR2032 battery and carries a $25 price. Simplisafe charges $24.99 for its fob, and Blue by ADT doesn’t offer one.
Additional options include a glass-break sensor ($35), a flood sensor ($20), a smoke detector ($30), and a CO detector ($50), all of which are competitively priced. Cove also offers a waterproof medical alert pendant button for $10 that you wear around the house. When pressed, it sends an SOS signal to the monitoring service, regardless of whether the system is armed or disarmed, and an agent will call or contact you via the base station panel.
Cove provides a free Yi 1080p indoor security camera, but it doesn’t interact with the system and uses its own app; additional cameras go for $59 each. The Cove system supports Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant voice commands, but it doesn’t support IFTTT applets that let it work with other IFTTT-enabled devices.
If you pay for the hardware in full, professional monitoring prices are reasonable. For $14.99 per month, the Basic Plan gets you 24/7 monitoring, LiveAssist (two-way communication), InstaText (text messaging when alerts are triggered), cellular service, and a one-year equipment warranty. For $24.99 per month, the Value Plan gets you everything in the Basic Plan, plus the use of a mobile app that lets you arm and disarm the system, receive in-app alerts, and view activity from your Android or iOS device. This plan also gives you a lifetime equipment warranty. If you cancel monitoring, you lose use of the mobile app and have to alert the authorities yourself when a break-in or fire occurs.
If you don’t want to pay for the hardware upfront, you can commit to a three-year monitoring plan where the Basic plan will cost you $24.99 per month and the Value Plan will cost $34.99 per month. At the end of the three years, the hardware is yours.
The mobile app lets you arm and disarm the system, bypass sensors, view activity, and activate a silent alarm that sends a signal to the monitoring center without alerting anyone else in your home. You can also add users and give them passcodes, but to do things like adjust entry delay times and speaker volume, edit user passcodes, and test and rename sensors, you have to use the touch-screen panel.
Easy to Install and Use
Installing the Cove system is easy no matter how much tech expertise you have. Following the simple instructions, I plugged in the panel and waited around three minutes for it to establish a cellular connection. I was greeted with a voice that welcomed me to Cove, and pressed the Get Started button on the screen.
I set up my four-digit master code and hit Next to install the sensors. I was instructed to press the Test button on the motion sensor and it was immediately detected. I tapped Next again and was instructed to trigger a door/window sensor by separating the two pieces. The system identified it as a back door sensor, and I moved on to the next one, which was identified as the front door sensor. The third was identified as a bedroom window sensor.
Next, I tested the connection between each sensor and the central monitoring station. I pressed the button on the side of the motion sensor and the panel displayed a Motion Signal Test Status screen that showed a verified connection. I also received a text message on my phone with a motion alert. I then tested each door/window sensor: All three were verified on the Signal Test screen, and I received text messages for each triggered sensor. I pressed a button on the key fob, held it for two seconds, and it too was verified and a text message was received.
A tutorial followed, showing me how to arm and disarm the system and displaying a diagram of the touch-screen panel layout. Lastly, I pressed the Call button on the screen to confirm the installation and activate monitoring. Once activated, I was connected with a live agent who verified my verbal passcode and I received a text message confirming a successful installation, with instructions on how to download and log in to the mobile app.
The Cove system worked well in testing. I received email, text, and push alerts instantly whenever an event took place, and the panel immediately delivered a chime with a voice identification of the triggered sensor. The LiveAssist feature also worked without a hitch, and communication with the response center using the panel’s two-way audio feature was clean and loud, with no echo or background noise.
Arm and disarm commands were initiated quickly whether using the key fob, the mobile app, or the touch-screen panel. As with the Nest Secure, the Cove siren is loud enough to be heard around the house, but not loud enough to alert the neighbors.
DIY Security With a Touch-Screen Command Center
The Cove Protect makes it easy to configure and install a security solution that is custom-tailored to your home. You can pay for the entire system upfront and pay for monthly professional monitoring, or pay nothing upfront and commit to a slightly more expensive three-year monitoring plan. The touch-screen panel is useful and sets it apart from most DIY options, and the sensors were very responsive in our tests, with email and text alerts arriving quickly. That said, Cove doesn’t support IFTTT, and you’ll have subscribe to a plan to use the mobile app. If you require more add-on options, meanwhile, consider our Editors’ Choice winner for DIY smart home security systems, the SimpliSafe Home Security System. It’s priced similarly and offers a smart door lock, a video doorbell, and both cellular and Wi-Fi connectivity.
