StayPut vs. SimpliSafe
SimpliSafe is built to protect one home from intruders with sirens, police dispatch, and one household's app. StayPut is built for chaperones monitoring many hotel rooms on a trip. Different jobs, different tools.
A lot of resourceful teachers have asked us: "Couldn't I just buy a home security kit and bring it on the trip?" It's a fair question and the hardware looks similar. A door sensor is a door sensor, right? Here's where the two actually differ, honestly.
At a glance
| Category | StayPut | SimpliSafe |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Hotel rooms on overnight trips | Your house |
| When a door opens | Push, email, and SMS to the chaperones you choose | Siren and alarm; the monitoring center may dispatch police |
| Curfew scheduling | Built in — alerts only during the window you set | None — the system is armed or it isn't |
| Internet | Built-in worldwide LTE — no hotel Wi-Fi | Base station expects home Wi-Fi; cellular requires a monthly plan |
| Multiple chaperones | Unlimited invites — each sees their assigned rooms | One household account |
| After the trip | Complete door-activity and alert history | Event log designed for home use |
| Hardware cost | $200 hub + $30 per sensor — one-time, reusable every trip | ~$245 starter kit + $16.99 per extra entry sensor |
| Ongoing cost | $10 per room per night, only on trip nights | $9.99–$79.99 per month, every month |
| Hotel-safe mounting | Removable adhesive with free replacement strips | Adhesive meant for a permanent home install |
The core difference: an alarm vs. a heads-up
SimpliSafe answers the question "is someone breaking into my house?" When a sensor trips, the siren sounds and, on monitored plans, a monitoring center can call the police. That's exactly right for a burglary. It's exactly wrong for a 16-year-old opening a door at 1 AM. You don't want a siren waking a hotel floor and a dispatcher deciding what happens next. You want the right chaperone's phone to buzz so an adult who knows the student can walk down the hall and handle it. That's the whole design of StayPut: quiet, immediate, and routed to the person responsible for that room.
Setup in a hotel
SimpliSafe's base station is made to be set up once, at home, on your Wi‑Fi. On a trip that means getting the hotel's guest network to cooperate (many block device-to-device traffic), or paying for a monitoring plan for cellular. The StayPut hub has LTE built in, plug it into an outlet in your room and you're monitoring in minutes, in any hotel. No passwords, no IT desk, no re-setup every trip.
What SimpliSafe does better
Honestly: protecting a home. If you want 24/7 professional monitoring, police dispatch, smoke and water sensors, and cameras for your house, SimpliSafe is one of the best DIY systems you can buy, and its starter-kit hardware costs less than ours. If your question is "how do I protect my home," buy SimpliSafe. We mean that.
Cost for a real trip
A 3-night trip with 10 monitored rooms:
StayPut
$500 in hardware (hub + 10 sensors — yours forever, reused every trip) plus $300 monitoring (30 room-nights × $10).
First trip ≈ $800; every trip after ≈ $300. Nothing between trips.
SimpliSafe
~$347 in hardware (Foundation kit + 6 extra entry sensors), plus a monthly plan year-round if you want cellular or monitoring.
And it still won't do curfew windows, multi-chaperone routing, or per-room assignment in a hotel.
Common questions
Comparing other options? See StayPut vs. Blue Painter's Tape and StayPut vs. Hired Security.
Built for trip nights, not break-ins.
Set up in minutes in any hotel. Sleep easy — we'll watch the doors.