My Experience With Vivint Smart Home — Buyer Beware
I want to share my extremely disappointing experience with Vivint so others can make an informed decision before doing business with this company.
I had Vivint security services at a home I moved out of in 2019. On January 20, 2022, I contacted Vivint to cancel my service. Vivint has since acknowledged in writing that cancellation was discussed during that interaction.
Fast-forward to August 2026, when I discovered my account had remained active and I had continued paying for a service I hadn’t used in years. The disputed charges totaled approximately $2,800.
What followed was an exhausting process involving numerous phone calls, multiple representatives, repeated transfers, disconnected calls, and promises of follow-ups that failed to resolve anything.
One Vivint representative even emailed me confirming that a refund review had been requested for charges dating all the way back to January 2022. After weeks of getting nowhere, I finally filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.
Only after filing that complaint did I receive meaningful attention from Vivint’s Priority Support Team.
Ultimately, Vivint refused to reimburse the approximately $2,800, stating that I had not submitted the written cancellation notice required under my original agreement.
Interestingly, Vivint cancelled my account in August 2026 entirely over the phone. When I questioned why my 2022 telephone request wasn’t sufficient, Vivint explained that its cancellation procedures had changed to allow verbal cancellations.
I understand that companies have contracts and policies. However, I also believe that customer service should involve more than simply pointing to contractual requirements after a customer has spent weeks trying to resolve a problem.
Vivint has offered a refund of just $51.47, which it says has been processed.
After countless hours of frustration, I’ve decided that continuing to fight for the remaining money simply isn’t worth any more of my time.
Vivint has permanently lost my business, my trust, and any possibility of a recommendation from me.
If you’re considering Vivint, I strongly encourage you to read every detail of the agreement, understand the cancellation requirements, and keep written documentation of every interaction.
Based on my personal experience, I would never recommend this company to anyone.

It seems to be a late 90’s era Total Home system. Hardwired zones, Voice module for dial up control, and climate control. We just bought this home and it works fine. But there’s no network integration. I can’t seem to identify if I can add an IP integration.
The control board is labeled “Total Home 8000”
Currently I have to pay for a landline, the monitoring company wants to add a GSM module and we’ll have to pay a full service monitoring company

I am searching for a camera system that uses no WiFi. I am on the board of a non-profit located in an old church building. We are searching for a way to monitor the main hall of our building wirelessly. I have tried Roku and a few others brands of cameras but they won’t connect because we have a dual broadcast WiFi network. Are there any good quality systems that don’t require a single broadcast 2.4G network? We are also aiming to keep costs minimal but I understand that isn’t always possible.

Snarky comments need not reply. I know this is not ideal but we’ve tried several systems that haven’t been able to function in our building.

Is this thing even worth setting up, or should I just get rid of it/sell it in get a different brand or updated Lorex system? It appears to be a couple years old (2021?) but never used.

Attic access and ability to install it/run cables. There’s no problem at all –

8 bullet camera 4K hardwired system with a 2TB HDD DVR

Just moved into a new apartment with my partner. Our new place has less security than our past apartments would like to get some cameras for our own peace of mind

We need a camera for the front door as well as maybe 1-2 cameras for our living room/kitchen area. I personally don’t feel the need to put a camera in our office or bedroom.

While our main concern is security, we also want to use the camera to monitor our dog when we leave him at home.

Things we would like:
- Good night mode/night vision
- Live feed
- Motion detection
- No drill preferred

Since it seems like most camera systems require a subscription, I would prefer if cameras were ~$65/each but I don’t mind paying up to $90/each if it’s really that much better. Seems like Ring is the most popular but want to see if there are other options out there.

Thanks in advance!

I have approximately 20 Geeni IP cameras throughout my rural property on multiple buildings. Bit of a mess. Most connect directly to the home router but I put an outdoor 2.4GHz AP up on the roof for the distant cameras. I've grown to dislike the Geeni app for it's clunky interface, poor video tracking and the ads inside the app hounding me to buy cloud storage. I want a camera system that has a professional interface with smooth tracking access, locally stored footage that's responsive and intuitive to access both on PCs and phones, and bonus points for easy to export (rarely needed).

Currently it looks like this;

~12 Cameras around and in the house. Perimeter and doors. ~6 around my detached workshop. These connect to a repeater inside the workshop, and that repeater connects to the AP on the house through a window. Metal cladding blocks most of the AP wifi signal inside the workshop. ~3 on a detached garage. They connect directly to the AP.
~2 in remote buildings monitoring surrounding land that can access my yard. Connect directly to AP.
~ 2 to 4 soon needed on a small office building to be built next year. (This could be another base unit.)

I'm leaning towards REOlink residential PoE systems. A 16 channel for the house and then use a second 8 channel base unit in the workshop. Perhaps a hybrid unit that can also pick up the detached garage cameras @ 20M away? Technically I could shallow bury 3 outdoor CAT cables to service the garage camera needs, but that'd be a pain. Also the workshop base unit ideally would use wifi to connect to the AP for intranet. Second option is to do a point-to-point bridge between the house and the workshop to bring access in that way.

The 2 remote cameras would need to be Wifi capable. It's unfeasible to hardwire. They're solar powered. They're not critical, but they're useful for high-level observation.

I'd appreciate any and all opinions on doing a multiple-base REOlink installation to cover my needs here.

I got a 8 channel annke camera system and the night vision is terrible I could hardly see. I'm wondering if it's me having bad setting or something

Looking to replace my locks for front and back door. Prefer to pair it with Alexa. Was looking at Phillips and Wyze, we already have Wyze cams and doorbell.
Any recommendations?

My wife and I currently have Blink outdoor cameras, and we’ve been extremely disappointed with them. They’re either way too sensitive and trigger notifications for no reason, or they’re so delayed that we don’t get alerts until someone has already left the camera’s view. Even when we do get a notification, it takes forever for the recorded video to load. Trying to access the live feed through the app is even worse, and it can take several minutes to load, if it works at all. We’re looking to replace our entire system with something reliable that sends timely notifications, accurately detects people without constant false alerts, and allows us to quickly access recorded footage and live video. What outdoor camera systems would be recommended?

i am sick and tired of my alkaline battries running out! and I DONT KNOW the reason at alll! my smart lock has been acting up and honestly this is so frustrationg...you might be ablt to put up with bad batteries on any other gadet, but a smart lock? on a door used by the whole family? daily?

Has anyone had a smart lock show a low battery warning within a day or two of putting in fresh alkaline batteries, and found out what was causing it?
Were the batteries actually drained, or was the warning wrong? Please include the lock model and what you changed. Even something you checked that turned out not to be the problem would be useful. For any of you ppl who replaced theirs with a solar charging model liek desloc, did that reduce the maintenance? atleast im hoping that should...

I'm looking to get a few indoor cameras that doesnt use Wifi or a power outlet in case the power gets cut/internet goes down and I still want notifications and feeds on my phone while I'm miles away. Initially I was close to getting the Arlo Go 2 with 4G connectivity, but I'm reading a lot of mixed reviews mostly mid-negatives due to connection problems with phone carriers which swayed me away from it. So I researched some more and saw trail cams. Thing is, I'm not sure if you can use them indoors since they are primarily made for outdoors. Or can someone recommend other 4G cameras? I see plenty and from unheard of brands (reolink, eufy) so I'm not sure how reliable they are.

Hi all, I’m about to move from a home with 2 exit doors to a home with 6 exit doors. My kids are 5 and 3 and I’d like a system that alerts me when any door (and probably even window) is open. My 3 year old is unpredictable and my 5 year old is too smart for their own good, so I want to make sure they are not going outside when they shouldn’t be.

Any suggestions on a system? I don’t mind having to pay someone to come and hardwire it all if that’s the best option. I want to make sure the home is secure and it’s easy for me to check on the status from my phone. May also have an entry gate, bonus points if it can integrate with that as well.

Thanks!!

i am sick and tired of my alkaline battries running out! and I DONT KNOW the reason at alll! my smart lock has been acting up and honestly this is so frustrationg...you might be ablt to put up with bad batteries on any other gadet, but a smart lock? on a door used by the whole family? daily?
Has anyone had a smart lock show a low-battery warning within a day or two of putting in fresh alkaline batteries, and found out what was causing it?
Were the batteries actually drained, or was the warning wrong? Please include the lock model and what you changed. Even something you checked that turned out not to be the problem would be useful. For any of you ppl who replaced theirs with a solar-charging model liek desloc, did that reduce the maintenance? atleast im hoping that should...

We recently bought a house and upon settling the Dorani NVR box was dead, it was working during all prior inspections. Annoying because there wasn’t a monitor to test the security system at the time but whatever. Given there are 3 Dorani DORIP4-BLACK cameras already, we bought a replacement Dorani NVR box after speaking to their support. Now we’ve plugged the cameras in via PoE, there is an incorrect username & password error for all of them.

Dorani is saying we need to get them out to have a look but if the camera’s firmware hasn’t been updated in a few years, it may not be possible and may need to replace the cameras

Any recommendations on resetting the cameras or how to get the system working? Don’t have the spare change to justify a new system (particularly after getting a new NVR) or paying for Dorani to come out. When we asked for the CCTV passwords at settlement, the vendors just gave us the Dorani support email.

Any help would be appreciated!

I’m looking for a solar outdoor camera and I’ve narrowed it down to these three:

1. Baseus X1 Pro

2. Eufy SoloCam S340

3. Reolink Argus Track

I mainly want something wireless with good tracking, decent night footage and local storage. I don’t really want to run power outside or pay for another monthly subscription.

Has anyone used any of these long term? I’m especially interested in how the tracking and solar charging hold up in normal use.

I am new to camera security systems (previously had an ADT security system with only motion and door/window sensors). From what I understand a POE system is strongly preferable to wifi, but I am still unsure of what a POE system's vulnerabilities are. If a POE system is fed to a NVR that is connected to wifi and/or feeds to a mobile device app does that defeat the purpose of going POE in the first place? Or does it create a vulnerability that I can patch another way? What I want is to be able to access the live and recorded camera feed from a mobile device but I don't want anyone else to be able to access that feed therefore compromising the whole system.