I’m very excited about this… a brand new approach to home and small business security.
(Teaser video → Click Here to view on YouTube)
A big thank you to Surety for donating the evaluation hardware. If you’ve been following the channel, you know Surety is my pick for a DIY Alarm.com provider and they’re the folks rolling out the nami system to American customers. While the equipment came at no cost to me, as always, all opinions and test results are my own.
What Is nami Agile?
This isn’t a new panel with another sensor protocol. The nami Agile Security System is built around a fundamentally different approach to motion detection: Wi-Fi sensing.
Instead of relying on traditional passive infrared sensors, nami analyzes subtle disturbances in Wi-Fi radio signals as people move through a space. Because Wi-Fi propagates in all directions and passes through walls and furniture, a single pair of sensing devices can cover an entire floor (not just the cone of view in front of a sensor). It’s a genuinely different way of doing this, and nami’s Wi-Fi sensing technology has real deployment history! It’s been used in care and wellness applications in Japan before being packaged into this security system.
The rest of the system:
- Thread mesh networking for the ambient sensors (modern, low-latency, reliable)
- Alarm.com on the backend, the same professional-grade platform we test on here every day
- Plug-and-play install, no drilling, no runs, no tools beyond opening the box
- Professional monitoring through Surety, starting at $19/month, no long-term contract
- Starter kits from $129, comparable upfront cost to Ring or SimpliSafe with a lot more platform depth behind it
Why This Matters
Most hardware I test here falls into one of three buckets: traditional panel-based systems (IQ 4, Vista, etc.) with their mature hardwired and sub 1Ghz wireless encrypted sensor ecosystems; consumer-grade solutions (Ring, SimpliSafe) that tend to trade depth for simplicity; or home grown security based on home automation platforms.
nami is making a run at a new lane: professional-grade platform, consumer-grade price and install experience, and a detection method that doesn’t trace its roots back to the Carter administration.
But being new isn’t necessarily better… That’s why we are bringing it to the bench to find out!
Whether it actually delivers in a real home (real pets, real HVAC, real Wi-Fi interference etc) is exactly what I’m curious about.
What the Series Will Cover
I’m not planning a rushed single video, but rather a multi-part evaluation (similar to what I did with the Zooz ZEN12 evaluation):
- Unboxing and First Setup: Hardware overview, what’s in the kit, initial configuration, and first impressions of the app experience
- Testing: Sensing behavior, platform integration, response times, edge cases, any issues, maybe even support experience
- Real-World Installation: Getting it set up in the house and living with it
- Long-Term Follow-Up: How does it hold up over time? Any surprises after daily use?
Equipment arrives early next week, so I’m targeting the first video in a few weeks once I’ve had meaningful time with it. Keep in mind my IQ system will still be installed in the same place so it may be interesting to see what system sees what activity. And which one ignores my dog!
What Do You Want To See?
Before I get too deep in, I’d love to know what you want to see. Things already on my list:
- False alarm rate and sensitivity tuning options
- Behavior around pets, ceiling fans, HVAC air movement
- Alarm.com rules and automation integration depth
- Wi-Fi interference (what happens with a congested 2.4/5 GHz environment?)
- Side-by-side comparison with traditional PIR coverage areas
Drop your questions and test scenarios below. If something comes up in the thread before filming wraps, I’ll work it into the video.
Thanks again to Surety for making this evaluation possible. I’ll be sure to have links to Surety and the nami system in the video descriptions once the series gets going.