Cove Security Review 2026

I’ve had the Cove home security system installed in my house for a while now, and I’ve been putting it through the tests. This is my full, honest Cove security review. I paid for all the equipment out of my own pocket, so there’s no sponsorship or bias here. I’ll cover the Cove security equipment, security cameras, sensors, the DIY home security installation process, professional monitoring, pricing, and all the things I think you should know before buying.

This is my complete review of the Cove home security system. I’ve had the Cove system in my home for a while now and I’ve been putting it through all the different tests. So, in this security review I’ll cover all the different features, pros + cons, monitoring plans, pricing, and finally I give my opinion on whether Cove is one of the best home security systems on the market.

If you’ve been reading Cove security reviews trying to figure out if this system is actually any good, then this article will defintily help you decide.

Pros and cons

Here is a quick overview all the pros and cons of the Cove security system as a whole.

What is Cove?

Cove is a DIY home security system that launched in 2018. The Cove security system is very budget friendly without sacrificing on quality. Cove doesn’t have all the bells and whistles (i.e. no smart home automation), but they cover the core home security features that you would expect from your security provider.

You order everything online (there’s a quiz that recommends a Cove system based on your home, or you can just build your own), they ship it to your door, and you install it yourself. There’s no professional installation option from Cove directly, though you can hire HelloTech to do it for around $129 if you’d rather not deal with it.

The Cove security system covers police, fire, and medical monitoring services through a Wi-Fi connection with cellular backup. So if your Wi-Fi goes out or you lose power, the Cove system stays connected. That’s the same kind of safety redundancy you’d see with ADT or Vivint, just at a lower price point.

The Cove touchscreen alarm panel

The touchscreen alarm panel is one of my favorite parts of the Cove security system. If you’ve watched any of my other home security reviews, you know I prefer a touchscreen keypad over the traditional push-button style. It’s just easier to use. You can navigate menus, change security settings, watch your Cove security cameras, arm and disarm the system, all by tapping around on the screen.

The Cove alarm panel also has built-in two-way voice. So if there’s a break-in and you can’t get to your phone, the professional monitoring station can communicate with you directly through the panel. That’s a nice safety feature that you don’t always see at this price point in home security.

The Cove alarm panel can mount to the wall or sit on a flat surface using the included stand. It has a 24-hour backup battery, so the Cove security system keeps working during power outages. This means that if your power goes out, your wifi goes out, then you’ll still have professional monitoring protecting your home.

> > Cove Promo Get: 70% OFF + Free Indoor Camera

The Cove hub

The Cove hub is a separate piece that plugs into your internet router. It’s the thing that actually connects all your Cove security sensors and devices together. You don’t interact with the Cove hub much after the initial setup.

I’ll be honest, the Cove hub isn’t winning any design awards. It’s a flat white box that takes up more space than I’d like. But the hub works, and that’s really all that matters for home security here.

DIY installation and easy setup

This is a DIY home security system, so there’s no technician coming to your home. Cove ships everything in a box and you handle the rest. The easy setup process is one of the biggest selling points of Cove security.

The good news: the security portion (alarm panel, hub, sensors) was incredibly easy to set up. You plug the Cove hub into your router, plug in the alarm panel, and the panel walks you through an onboarding flow to sync all your security sensors. The sensors are peel-and-stick. Pull off the adhesive backing, stick them on your doors and windows, and that’s it. This whole part took me about 30 minutes.

The Cove security cameras, on the other hand, that part was frustrating. The entire installation took me about three hours total, and the cameras were responsible for most of that time. The issue was getting the security cameras to sync to the alarm panel. Two things tripped me up:

First, your phone has to be connected to 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi when you scan the QR code to set up the Cove security cameras. If your router broadcasts both 2.4 and 5 GHz, you need to make sure you’re on 2.4. The cameras won’t connect on 5 GHz.

Second, the cameras have to be charged to 100% before the initial setup. Not 95%, not 30%. Full charge. And it takes about eight hours to get there. The annoying part is that the error message just says “failed to connect.” It doesn’t tell you it’s a battery issue or a Wi-Fi band issue. That would have saved me a lot of headaches during the Cove setup.

After I got past those two hurdles, everything synced fine and the Cove security cameras have been working great since.

> > Cove Promo Get: 70% OFF + Free Indoor Camera

Renter-friendly

If you’re renting, the Cove security system is worth a look. Everything is wireless. The security sensors stick on with adhesive and peel off cleanly. I tested removing the door sensor and motion detector, and there was zero residue or damage. You’d never know they were there.

One small caveat: the glass break detector did peel off a tiny bit of drywall when I removed it. You can’t really see it on the wall, but it’s something to keep in mind if your landlord is picky about that kind of thing.

Cove sensors and security equipment

My Cove system came with door/window sensors, a motion detector, and a glass break detector. They all connect to the Cove alarm panel wirelessly and the setup is pretty straightforward. The security sensors are small and descreet.

The door sensor and window sensors are magnetic. When the connection between the two pieces breaks (because someone opened the door or window), the sensor sends a signal to the Cove hub. If you’re home, you’ll hear a voice alert from the alarm panel. If you’re away, you’ll get a notification on your phone through the Cove app.

The motion detector works well. I haven’t had issues with false alarms from the Cove security system. The glass break detector listens for the frequency of breaking glass and triggers the alarm if it picks it up. You place the detector on the wall opposite your windows for the best results.

Cove also sells smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detectors, and flood detectors for life safety monitoring. If you add these safety devices to your Cove security system, the professional monitoring station will dispatch fire or medical services to your home if a detector goes off. I’d recommend adding at least a smoke detector and CO detector for the added safety.

Cove security cameras

Cove uses Eufy security cameras instead of making their own. Which is actually a positive in my mind because Eufy makes solid security cameras. My Cove system has three: the indoor camera, the doorbell camera, and the outdoor camera.

Feature	Indoor	Doorbell	Outdoor
Video Quality	HD	HD	HD
Night Vision	Yes	Yes	Yes
Two-Way Talk	Yes	Yes	Yes
Power Source	Wired	Wired or Battery	Solar
Pan & Tilt	Yes	No	No
Motion Detection	Yes	Yes	Yes
Local SD Storage	Yes	Yes	Yes
Can Record Without wifi	Yes	Yes	Yes
Chime Included	No	Yes	No

Indoor security camera

The Cove indoor security camera is my favorite of the three. It does pan and tilt, meaning it rotates side to side and the lens moves up and down. So you can see around the entire room from one camera, which is a nice security feature you don’t always get at this price range in home security. It’s wired (plugs in), records in HD with night vision, and has two-way talk.

Doorbell security camera

The Cove doorbell security camera records in HD with night vision and two-way talk. You can either wire it into your existing doorbell wiring or use the battery. It comes with its own chime, so you don’t need to buy anything extra. The flexibility there is nice. If you don’t have doorbell wiring, the Cove doorbell camera still works right out of the box.

Outdoor security camera

The Cove outdoor security camera is 100% wireless. There’s no way to plug it in. Instead, it recharges through a built-in solar panel. I live in central Florida and we get plenty of sun, so the camera has had no issues staying charged. If you live somewhere with limited sunlight during winter months, that might be something to consider for your home security setup.

> > Cove Promo Get: 70% OFF + Free Indoor Camera

Security camera pros and cons

Security camera pros

All three Cove security cameras are HD with night vision, motion detection, and two-way talk. Anytime there’s activity, the camera records a clip and sends you a security alert. You can pull up the live feed on the Cove app, talk to whoever’s there, and save clips to your phone.

The biggest pro for Cove cameras is the local storage. Each security camera has an SD card slot, so they record locally even without Wi-Fi. If your internet goes down, you don’t lose footage. That’s a security feature you don’t get with a lot of competitors in the home security space.

Another nice perk: you can add as many Cove security cameras as you want without your monthly monitoring bill going up. Three cameras, six cameras, doesn’t matter. Same monthly price.

And if you ever cancel Cove security services, the cameras aren’t locked to the Cove service. They’re Eufy cameras, so you can just resync them to the Eufy app and keep using them. That’s a big advantage over home security systems where the cameras become paperweights if you cancel.

Security camera cons

No security camera is perfect. Here are the downsides of Cove cameras:

The Cove cameras can’t do 24/7 continuous recording. They only record clips when motion is detected. If you want that DVR-style experience where it’s recording every second of every day, these security cameras won’t do that.

There’s no Power over Ethernet (PoE) option. The Cove security cameras connect wirelessly, so the video quality depends on your Wi-Fi connection. If your internet is spotty, the footage might not be as crisp. I’d like to see a PoE option for a more stable connection, similar to what you’d get with Vivint’s home security cameras.

And as I mentioned, the initial Cove camera setup was a headache. Once the security cameras are connected, they work great. But getting there took patience.

The Cove app

The Cove app works well for managing your home security. You can arm and disarm the Cove security system from anywhere, watch all the security cameras, view recordings, and manage your settings. Everything lives under one app, which is a plus. With ADT, for example, you need two separate apps to manage everything. Cove keeps it all in one place.

That said, the Cove app isn’t quite as polished as what you’d get with Vivint or ADT. There are little UI things that bug me. For example, when you want to scroll through your security camera recordings by date, you can’t just keep swiping from today into yesterday into the day before. You have to manually select each day from a dropdown calendar. It’s a small thing, but after using Vivint’s app where that experience is smoother, you notice the difference.

But don’t get me wrong. The Cove app does its job. If you don’t want to pay Vivint prices and still want a solid home security experience, the Cove app will get you there. It’s just not quite as refined.

Smart home automation (or lack thereof)

The biggest limitation of the Cove security system is that there is no smart home automation. Cove doesn’t sync up to anything that is z-wave compatible. This means that you can’t use your smart thermostat, smart door lock, smart light switches etc. The Cove system only does home security.

You can set up basic automations for the Cove security system itself. Things like arming the security system automatically at 8 AM on weekdays, or arming it every night at 9 PM. So there’s some flexibility for scheduling. But you won’t get the kind of smart home experience where you arm the Cove system and it also locks your doors, turns off the lights, and adjusts the temperature. For that kind of smart home security, you’d need to look at ADT or Vivint.

Cove does work with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant for voice commands, but only on the Cove Plus monitoring plan. You can use voice commands to arm and disarm the Cove security system, which is convenient. But that’s about the extent of the smart home integration with Cove.

If you’re someone who really wants the full smart home security experience under one roof, Cove isn’t going to be the right fit. But if you just want home security monitoring and don’t care about controlling your smart thermostat from the alarm panel, this won’t bother you at all.

Cove pricing and monitoring plans

Here’s where Cove really shines. This is, in my opinion, the best value in home security right now.

Cove equipment cost

When I ordered my Cove system, I was able to get 70% off with a free indoor camera. My total for the Cove security equipment was $250.48. That covered the touchscreen alarm panel, the Cove hub, three security cameras (indoor, doorbell, outdoor), door and window sensors, a motion detector, and a glass break detector. Enough to cover my whole home at about 2,100 square feet.

You pay for the Cove security equipment upfront, and since there’s no contract, you own everything outright from day one.

> > Cove Promo Get: 70% OFF + Free Indoor Camera

Cove monthly monitoring cost

Cove requires professional monitoring. There’s no self-monitoring option. However, if you do choose to go without a plan, the equipment still works at a basic level. I wrote a full breakdown of what works with Cove without monitoring if you are curious. You pick one of two monitoring plans:

Feature	Cove Basic ($19.99/mo)	Cove Plus ($29.99/mo)
24/7 Professional Monitoring	Yes	Yes
Cove App Access	Yes	Yes
Alarm Verification via Text	Yes	Yes
24-Hour Battery Backup	Yes	Yes
Cellular Backup	Yes	Yes
Security Camera Support	No	Yes
Alexa & Google Assistant	No	Yes
Lifetime Equipment Warranty	No	Yes
$5/mo Equipment Credit	No	Yes

I’m on the Cove Plus monitoring plan since I have security cameras. With the $5 monthly credit, my real Cove monthly cost is more like $25/month, and that credit accumulates over time so I can eventually use it to buy more security sensors or another camera. My total Cove bill comes to about $33/month for professional monitoring.

If you just want the home security portion without cameras, you’re looking at about $23/month for Cove’s professional monitoring services. That’s hard to beat anywhere in the home security industry.

No contract

If you’re not happy with the Cove security system, return the equipment within 60 days for a full refund. This is one of the reasons I think Cove is one of the best home security systems for people who are hesitant about committing to a security provider.

Is Cove a good home security system?

I think the Cove security system is a really solid option, and I’d recommend Cove to the right person. The Cove security equipment is quality gear for the price. The sleek touchscreen alarm panel is great. The security cameras do their job. The professional monitoring is affordable. And there’s no contract, which removes a lot of the risk.

The biggest caveat with Cove security is the lack of smart home integration. If you want a home security system that controls your entire house (smart locks, smart lights, thermostat, the whole thing), Cove isn’t going to do that. You’d want to look at ADT or Vivint for that kind of smart home security setup.

But if you’re someone who just wants home security without breaking the bank, and you don’t need all the smart home bells and whistles, the Cove security system is hard to beat on value. Cove’s security equipment is rock solid, the monitoring pricing is right, and you’re not locked into a long-term commitment.

Who is Cove best for?

• Budget-conscious buyers. If you want real, professionally monitored home security for the lowest possible monthly cost, Cove is probably your best option right now. Cove’s hardware is fairly well-priced overall.
• Renters. Everything is wireless and removes cleanly. No holes drilled, no damage to the walls (mostly). Easy to take with you when you move. The Cove security system is one of the best home security systems for renters.
• People who just want security. If you don’t care about smart home features and just want your doors, windows, and security cameras monitored with professional monitoring services, Cove handles that well.
• DIYers. If you’re comfortable setting things up yourself, the Cove installation (at least the security sensor portion) is about as easy as it gets for DIY home security.

If you want the full smart home experience, a premium touchscreen with camera feeds, or professional installation services, you’re better off looking at Vivint or ADT.

Cove frequently asked questions