Key Highlights
- SimpliSafe is moving into professional, “white glove” installation and service by partnering with regional distributors like PowerHouse Alliance to reach professional integrators.
- New opportunity for integrators: Rather than competing with DIY, integrators can now sell, install, and service SimpliSafe products, building ongoing customer relationships and revenue streams.
- Financially viable channel play: SimpliSafe promises competitive wholesale pricing and consistent monitoring services, positioning the shift as mutually beneficial for both customers and integrators.
SimpliSafe has unveiled a new professional services offering, targeting “do-it-for-me (DIFM)” customers outside of its traditional DIY users.
Announced at CEDIA Expo today, the company plans to leverage the expertise of security and AV integrators and installers to achieve this market expansion. However, the company will not turn to the traditional dealer model popularized for decades by many of its residential security competitors; instead, it will leverage regional distribution companies, which will stock SimpliSafe products on the shelves and give integrators the freedom to offer them to any of their customers.
The channel program has been architected by Kostas Reissis, who joined the company in March after a long career in security and AV services, as well as consumer electronics. He is best known as one of the founding members of Sonos.
“A long time ago, I owned and ran my own professional installation company – I came from that world, which I think really helps,” Reissis says. “We set up the program in a way that will be financially rewarding for integrators. Our margins will probably be better than the competition.”
Adds Scott Braun, SimpliSafe’s Chief Growth Officer: “We don’t envision a [traditional] dealer model. There are thousands of integrators across the country, and we hope every single one of them is offering our product, buying it through distributors, and then offering it to their end-consumers. We are not disrupting the model of the integrators at all – we want to work with them hand-in-glove, right in their existing model, and allow them to bring what we think is a really good product to their end-customers.”
Reissis says SimpliSafe will focus on regional distributors and specifically cited availability via the PowerHouse Alliance, a national consortium of regional wholesale distributors serving integrators in residential and commercial AV, security, networking, home entertainment, and related tech markets.
“We plan to be very proactive, with events at the distributor facilities announcing that SimpliSafe is now available, and the distributor will pull in their existing integrators to come in and see it,” Reissis says, “and we can do a little training and education.”
Adds Braun: “We certainly want to get out there to meet and educate the integrators and make them feel comfortable – more than comfortable; proud to actually endorse our product and then carry that on to the end-consumer.”
Shift to White Glove Service
This move represents a market expansion for SimpliSafe. While the company has attempted to corner the market on direct-to-consumer DIY installation-friendly security products, executives found that a large portion of the market was unreachable without the help of technicians.
“There are plenty of customers out there who are just not ‘DIY people,’” Reissis says. “They generally fall into two groups: One group is just not technical enough, and the other is just too busy or can’t be bothered to install the technology. They would rather hire a professional.”
Reissis envisions a similar process to a traditional alarm sale. The integrator will introduce them to the SimpliSafe products, explain to the customer why it is the best solution for the home and how it works, then sell them the equipment and install it, and then train them on how to use it. This also creates an ongoing relationship with a customer, who will call on the integrator for service and maintenance issues, troubleshooting, and hopefully product expansion when the time comes.
“This is just our way to bring what we believe is the best home security offering out there to people who want a different service model,” Braun says. “We just wanted more of a high-touch service aspect. It is the same great product, but some customers just have different service needs.”
What’s in it for Integrators?
Many residential integrators have seen themselves as adversaries to DIY offerings and SimpliSafe in particular over the years; however, Reissis sees this as an opportunity to create new relationships.
“I don’t think there was a broken relationship with the industry or integrators; there really wasn’t a relationship at all,” he says. “If anything, the integrators and the industry have been asking themselves why they couldn’t provide SimpliSafe as a solution or as an option for customers. Now they can. I’ve been out there since April talking to integrators, and I’m getting very positive feedback.”
Reissis assures integrators that the offering will be competitive from a wholesale pricing standpoint. “There are two things that integrators care about: First is that they give their customers the best solution they can, and at the same time, it has to make sense financially, so they can keep running their business,” he says.
Braun says the professional monitoring options for the products will be the same as current options, which include the company’s new Active Guard service, which Security Business covered extensively at CES 2025 in January.
“Our mission is really around making every home secure,” Braun says. “If we’re not even available via the channel, how can we fulfill that mission? This is really just part of the longer story of us fulfilling the mission of making sure everybody has access to the best home security.”
Check out our exclusive interview with SimpliSafe from CES 2025!
About the Author
Paul Rothman
Editor-in-Chief/Security Business
Paul Rothman is Editor-in-Chief of Security Business magazine. Email him your comments and questions at [email protected]. Access the current issue, full archives and apply for a free subscription at www.securitybusinessmag.com.