Is This Ultra-Affordable Smart House Alarm Any Good?! | X-Sense Home Security System [Review]

The X-Sense Smart Home Security Alarm System: low cost, DIY install… what’s it like?
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Burglar alarms are pretty ubiquitous if you live in a town or city, and with the darker nights and people staying at home less after easing of COVID restrictions, you might be thinking a house alarm is a good idea if you’ve not got one already. The trouble is though, just like car alarms, when they go off they’re probably seen more as an annoyance than a big pointy arrow saying, “oi, look, someone’s breaking into this house!” – we’ve become desensitized to them.

The Internet of Things has exploded in recent years and everything these days is going smart, like your doorbell and CCTV cameras which we’ve covered on this channel recently. Well, house alarms are no different and nowadays they’ll actually tell you, via a push notification on your phone, that your alarm’s going off – no more having to wait for your neighbour to text you to tell you you’re now the most unpopular person on the street oh and by the way what’s your alarm code so I can shut the damn thing up. So that’s why X-Sense have come up with this: a very low cost, smart house alarm/security system that you can easily install yourself.

They sent me a free one one (thanks!) so I’ve set it up in my house and been using it for a few weeks now to put it through its paces. This isn’t a sponsored video; this is all my own independent thoughts and feedback. 

The key feature for me is the smartphone app and remote monitoring capabilities, but before we get to that, let’s see what you get in the box. I have here the 8-piece kit so you get the base station, 2 motion sensors, 4 entry sensors, a remote control, quick start guide and a choice of sticky pads or screws and rawl plugs to put everything up.

It was very easy to set up and get it connected to my Netgear Orbi WiFi network and everything worked smoothly straight away. The sensors don’t come pre-paired; you add each one to the system individually during the setup by scanning the QR code on the back, giving each one a name and assigning it to a room in your house. Being a modular system means you can add extras and grow the system to your requirements, although I couldn’t actually find individual sensors for sale yet so hopefully that’s coming soon. 

The Base Unit is small, discreet and not too ugly looking – it could go on the top of a bookshelf or something and not look too out of place. It’s loud enough to be heard around my house, but it’s not really going to be heard outside by the neighbours unless it’s by an open window. All 3 sounds are suitably horrible, which I guess is the point…?! Have a listen… Absolutely everything is controlled via the app and you can set the volume as well as choose the alarm tone.

And whilst we’re talking about the app, the level of customization you get for each sensor is seriously impressive. It’s infinitely customisable, and allows you to choose what happens in every possible scenario, individually, for each sensor, including setting motion sensitivity and whether the little LED indicators light up or not when activated. It also shows you the signal strength for each sensor so you know if you’ve accidentally installed one in a dead spot. All mine show as full signal strength which is no surprise as in total the system claims a 1.25mile wireless range, which is just over 2km! Who has a house that big?!

What really impressed me was the overall quality of the product as a whole at this price point. The build quality is really solid and it doesn’t feel cheap at all despite being extremely competitively priced. The app is very well designed and laid out and feels well thought through. The whole package feels really mature and high quality; it certainly doesn’t feel like a new or unfinished product or anything like that.

A really good feature on the app (which I discovered by accident) is that when arming the system, if any doors/windows are still open it asks if you’re sure you want to switch to away mode and tells you which ones you’ve left open! That was a really nice surprise when testing – I like being surprised by an “ooh, that’s a good feature” moment when reviewing a product.

In my tests so far, the system seems to work well and is very responsive. The alarm goes off straight away when a door/window sensor is triggered and there’s only about a 2s delay on the motion sensor.

You can also set some or all of the magnetic sensors to play a notification sound each time they’re activated by their respective door or window being opened which is a great way of knowing if someone’s, say, opened your porch door or something. If you own a small shop then this could alert you each time a new customer enters – the high-tech equivalent of a jingling bell above the door!

The remote has 4 buttons on it; Disarm, Away Mode, Home Mode and an SOS button which if you hold down for 5 seconds will sound the alarm on the base station and send a notification to the smartphone app. 

So all in all, a pretty good package so far. I was disappointed though by the lack of Google Home integration. It’s a shame, as I can think of lots of ways in which they could work well together. For instance, smart speakers around the house could chime as well as the base station when doors/windows or opened, and even act as extra alarm speakers to really scare the socks off a burglar. Or the motion sensors could turn on/off smart light bulbs in a room to save energy when no-one’s in there, or trigger a smart plug to scare thieves away with the illusion of house occupancy. You could even set/unset the alarm with voice control (if you trust that), or have it arm the system automatically when your Nest devices detect that you’re Away, or tell your indoor Nest Cameras to record only when the alarm is armed. None of that’s currently possible though, so it would be great to see them work on integrating into the Google ecosystem in the future.

It also has no control panel to put a PIN into when arming and disarming, which is a slight shame, so the app or fob are the only ways to operate it. However, it’s easy to add another user via the app and you could argue this is better than telling lots of extra people the code for your alarm, as you can control and revoke their access more easily.

I should point out that this will only alert you of any intruders if your WiFi is on and working; although the base station has battery backup, that only allows the alarm to ring in the case of a power cut. A SIM card would be a good option, so that if a thief manages to cut your Internet cable before they break in, you could still get a smartphone notification. However, at this price point it probably wouldn’t be reasonable to expect a 3 or 4G modem and a data plan!

As I’ve mentioned already, the base unit’s alarm isn’t ear-piercingly loud, which I guess you wouldn’t really expect from an internal device – it wouldn’t be heard outside the house and probably wouldn’t deter a thief from continuing to grab your valuables, so to speak. But this to me is more of a remote monitoring thing, and the alarm will just tell the thief “we’re on to you” and hopefully that will make them more likely to leave.

I think this would be absolutely ideal as well for a shed, summerhouse or garden office type room. When I initially opened the box I thought well this could never replace a larger house alarm system or be the main one for a large house… but the more I used it and thought about it the more I thought “do we need an external siren mounted on the outside wall of the house?”

Do they still have a place? Car and house alarms tend to get ignored, and the police won’t attend a house just because the alarm’s going off. So maybe keeping it inside is all we need, and it’s actually more important to alert the home owner via the smartphone notification? Let me know what you think in the comments.

Moving on…

The smart element alone on this alarm is a game changer for me, it’s so much more useful than the dumb alarm that was already fitted and hard-wired to my house by the previous owner.

This is of course not the only alarm system that has this feature though, so how does it compare to others? The Yale series of smart alarms work with Alexa and Google, but the starting model in that range is nearly double the price of this and contains just 1 motion sensor. So if integration with other smart home ecosystems isn’t that important for you and more sensors for your money is, then this makes a very compelling alternative.

What would I change about this alarm? Well I’ve already moaned enough about the lack of Google Home integration so I won’t labour that point any more. To be honest with you there’s not a huge amount more that I WOULD change. The entry sensors are quite large which makes placement a little bit difficult, although they don’t actually need to be touching, they can be 2.5cm apart so it’s actually easier than you first think and they seem to work great. Also, the bracket for the motion sensor could be reshaped so it fits in the corner of a room, for better placement. With the current one you have to place it flat on to the wall which isn’t ideal.

The base unit, which is where the alarm sound comes from, isn’t fixed and you can’t mount it on a wall as it’s clearly meant to be placed on a shelf somewhere. It has an internal battery which X-Sense say is good for 12hrs so an intruder can’t just unplug it to stop it going off. I don’t know how well it would survive if the burglar smashed it to pieces with a hammer though, they only sent me 1 review unit and I don’t really want to destroy it! However, you wouldn’t need to destroy it… all you have to do is press the button on the front, and the alarm stops sounding. It doesn’t disarm the system, but it does shut the alarm up until it gets triggered again – which seems a slightly strange design choice to me. Why make it so easy to silence, with no credential check? They could easily have included a keypad on the base station to require a PIN to silence and/or disarm it.

Honestly, I’m surprised by how good this is. Admittedly I’ve only used it for a few weeks so far, but everything feels solid and well built, everything works well, the app has a premium feel to it and all at a very low price point. My only real complaint is lack of interoperability with other devices but who knows, that might come one day.