SimpliSafe Motion Sensor (Gen 2) is offline or unavailable

SimpliSafe specifies 35 ft with a 90° field of view, designed to cover a whole room from one corner. A subject beyond 35 ft is outside specification, and that is the answer to most 'it misses people at the far end' reports — sensitivity does not extend range.

SimpliSafe specifies a corner, 6 ft from the floor. A shelf is acceptable only if it is still 6 ft up, flat, and with a clear view of the room. Height is the single most consequential thing about installing this sensor, because the detection zones fan outward from it.

SimpliSafe states the Gen 2 distinguishes people from pets up to 60 lbs, using a more advanced PIR sensor and algorithm than the Gen 1. Above 60 lbs that discrimination is outside what it is specified for — and mounting height still matters, because it determines whether the animal is below the lowest zone.

In the SimpliSafe app, between Standard Mode and Pet Mode. It is a two-position mode rather than a continuous slider, so there is no partial adjustment to hunt for — which also means placement and height carry more of the load here than on a camera.

SimpliSafe attributes to the Gen 2 specifically: a 35 ft range, a 90° field of view, people-versus-pet discrimination up to 60 lbs, and app-adjustable sensitivity. They are genuinely different hardware, so a figure or a procedure from one does not transfer to the other.

At the router or the hub, not at any device. Simultaneous failure across unrelated hardware is the signature of a shared dependency, and re-adding devices one by one before that dependency is fixed is work you will have to repeat.

It rules out the router, the internet connection and the provider — all of which would take the others with them. What remains is that device's own power, its own radio path, and its own account state.

That interval is the clue. A drop that recurs on a roughly fixed schedule usually tracks the router's DHCP lease. A reservation for the device's MAC address at the router removes it permanently, where rebooting only resets the clock.

Both, in sequence. Marginal signal degrades first — slower live view, late notifications, missed events — and only then drops out. A device that went straight from perfect to absent is more likely a power or credential problem than a signal one.

Because they still hold the old network's name and password, and nothing can tell them otherwise. Setting the new router to the old network name and password is often faster than re-adding every device, and is worth doing before the first re-add.

Then the local link is probably fine and the break is further along — between the router and the provider, or at the provider itself. Check the provider's status page and the router's internet connection before doing anything to the device.

Not as a first step, and not during a provider outage. A reset discards local settings and, on a shared device, can discard other people's access. Establish what is actually broken first — reset is a recovery action, not a diagnostic one.

No, and it is rarely necessary. Deleting a home or hub destroys every automation, permission and share attached to it. Remove and re-add the single failed accessory instead.

Router firmware updates can turn on band steering, IoT client isolation or DNS filtering that was previously off. Compare the current settings against the defaults for those three specifically — a device that worked for a year and stopped on an update date is describing a router change, not a device failure.

Router first, fully up, then the hub, fully up, then accessories. Restarting everything simultaneously produces address conflicts and rejoin storms that look exactly like the original fault, which is how a five-minute check turns into an afternoon.

Give the router several minutes to finish handing out addresses, and battery devices longer still — several report on a duty cycle and will not check in immediately. Judging at thirty seconds produces false failures and unnecessary resets.

It can. Consumer routers have finite client tables, and a household with dozens of connected devices can exceed one. The symptom is that a device drops whenever a new one joins, which reads as random until the pattern is spotted.

That is a useful, specific result: the device joined the local network successfully, so credentials, band and signal are all fine. The break is between the router and the provider — DNS filtering, a firewall rule, or the provider's own service.

No. It is scoped to Gen 2 — the serial number is inside the battery compartment. SimpliSafe Gen 3 system component; sensors reach the Base Station over SimpliSafe's own sub-GHz radio rather than Wi-Fi, so a router problem and a sensor problem are separate investigations. Monitoring plan, cellular backup and camera generation vary.

Record the complete model identifier, exact message or indicator, software/firmware where visible, the operating stage and what still works.

A reset can erase accounts, networks, maps, schedules or preferences without distinguishing offline, unavailable. The ordered checks preserve that evidence.

Protect security devices and avoid deleting the entire home for one offline accessory.