FAQs and Support

A Residence is the term for the location set in the Threshold app. This is where you have your devices set up. We understand that the location you’re monitoring may not technically be a residence, but we thought this would be a more friendly way to refer to the location and expect that most of our customers are going to be using Threshold Care products inside a residence.

A Zone is an area of the Residence. It usually represents either a single room or a set of rooms on the same floor of the Residence. For example, your Zone could be a couple of rooms (like the kitchen and dining area), a suite (such as a bedroom, bathroom, and walk-in closet), or an entire floor of the Residence. Motion Wi-Fi Sensing Plugs work together to create a Motion Zone.

Motion Wi-Fi Sensing Plugs are intended for wide motion detection and don’t pinpoint the specific location where motion is taking place. As an example, the Kitchen Zone can report that someone is moving in the kitchen, but it won’t be able to say if that person is by the fridge or the sink. This is one reason that having multiple Zones in a larger Residence may be beneficial.

Detection is reported through the Zone instead of by individual devices. This means that any motion happening outside of the Motion Zone you have set will not be reported.

Glad you asked! Here are tips for making an effective Zone:

1. Each Zone shouldn’t cover more than 1,500 square feet in a Residence. If you want to monitor a larger area, please consider purchasing additional kits and creating a separate Zone.
2. Each Zone should only exist on 1 floor of your Residence. If the Residence is multistory, please consider purchasing extra kits for improved coverage.
3. Each Zone requires a minimum of 3 sensors to operate properly. These form a triangle. The inside of the triangle is considered to be the Prime Detection Zone. If you only are using 2 sensors, you will have motion reported but the detection is weak because it’s more or less detecting along a line.
4. When setting your Zone, it’s best to have your Motion Wi-Fi Sensing Plugs on different walls. This helps prevent your sensors from being in a line and having weak detection capabilities.
5. If you want to improve the coverage of a Zone, you can use another kit to add a 4th sensor to the Zone to change the Zone’s shape.
6. Use the same access point on your router for each Motion Wi-Fi Sensing Plug within your Zone.
7. Set your Zone where the person receiving care spends the most time. If a single Zone cannot cover the whole residence, we recommend covering the common or living area. If you have 2 Motion Zones, we recommend covering the common or living area and the primary bedroom and bathroom area of the home. This will provide the best coverage in most cases. Of course, you should adjust this coverage to fit the needs and habits of the person receiving care.
8. Make sure your plugs aren’t obstructed by objects that can block or alter Wi-Fi signals.
9. If you have multiple Zones, make sure they do not overlap.

Yes, you can set multiple Zones in a single Residence. All Zones can be viewed individually on the dashboard and you can also see an aggregated view of the motion for the entire Residence.

No, a Zone needs to have a minimum of 3 plugs to function effectively. This is why each kit comes with 3 plugs. If you need to check on more areas of the Residence, please consider purchasing additional kits so you can have the coverage you need.

In some cases, temporarily pausing or turning off the 5 GHz access in your router settings can help your plug connect to the required 2.4 GHz band. If this doesn’t work, please contact Threshold Care Customer Support for troubleshooting assistance.

No, Motion Wi-Fi Sensing Plugs only connect to 2.4 GHz bands. This allows the plugs to detect motion over a larger area.

Yes, you can have a single Threshold account function in multiple Residences. The role you occupy in the Circle of Care of each Residence may vary and this will affect what you can do in each Residence. As an example, you may be a Residence Administrator in one Residence with the permissions to add devices, change Zones, and delete the Residence, but in another Residence you’re part of the Circle of Care with permission to view the dashboard but not change the configuration of the Residence.

You should reset your devices if:

1. You haven’t received a motion report in 15 minutes when you know it should have been detected.
2. Threshold Care Customer Support has recommended that you reset your devices.
3. The tooltip on your graph when you look at the description is saying “Unknown Motion”. 
4. In this case, we recommend that you delete all of the devices in the affected Zone from the app before trying to add them back. This will reset the Zone at the same time as the device. You won’t lose prior data from your Zone unless you delete the Zone itself instead of the devices in the Zone.

If a standard reset didn’t fix the problem you are experiencing, you may want to try a factory reset. Please note that you’ll need to have a Threshold account and app access to complete the process. Here’s how to do it:

1. First, unplug your Motion Wi-Fi Sensing Plug. 
2. Hold down the button on the side of the plug.
3. Keep holding down the button while you plug your device back into the outlet.
4. Hold down the button with your plug in the outlet for about 10 seconds. When you’ve waited long enough, the Motion Wi-FI Sensing Plug will click and the light will start flashing blue. 
5. Release the button.
6. Unplug the device from the socket.
7. If you are resetting your plug because you don’t plan to use it anymore, you are done. If you are trying to reconnect the plug with your network, don’t plug your device into the outlet yet because you’ll need to scan the code on the back of it shortly. Open the Threshold app.
8. Navigate to the “Settings” page.
9. Select “Manage Devices”.
10. Tap “Add New Device”.
11. Follow the instructions in the app to set up your plug.

As a reminder, Threshold reports motion based on Zone activity instead of individual devices. This means that you may need to factory reset all of the plugs in your Zone to restore function. We hope it doesn’t come to that and apologize for the inconvenience. If the factory resets still have not resolved the problem, please make sure to let Threshold Care Customer Support know so we can look at other solutions.

A factory reset returns your device to the software condition it was in when you opened its box. Your Wi-Fi connection information is permanently erased and your device is put back into pairing mode. At this point, your plug is not able to automatically reconnect to the network it was previously connected to and will not be able to detect motion anymore. You should be able to connect to your network again through the usual setup flow after performing a factory reset unless there is an issue with the plug or network connectivity.

The simplest way to reset your plug is to unplug it and plug it in again (surprise!). Motion is reported for a Zone instead of a single device, so you’ll want to reset all of the Motion Wi-Fi Sensing Plugs in your Zone if motion hasn’t been detected accurately. If this doesn’t fix the problem you were experiencing, you may want to consider performing a factory reset for those plugs.

The Threshold app displays an online/offline status for devices in Settings > Manage Devices. It can take up to 15 minutes for the app to reflect an offline status if your plug recently lost connection. 

If your plug has gone offline, unplug it from the outlet, wait 5 seconds, and plug it back in again. If the LED slowly pulses blue for several minutes, then your device is in pairing mode and is not connected to any network.

Please note that the visible LED otherwise only indicates if the plug is letting power through it or not. It is not a sign of connectivity to your network.

It can take up to 15 minutes for your app to display the offline status of your plug.

Your Zone has the ability to change detection sensitivity. To do this, open Settings > Manage Zones and then tap on the Zone with the overzealous motion detection. A panel will open with options to change the name of your Zone and its sensitivity. The new setting takes effect almost immediately, but it will likely take you a few minutes to decide if you have changed the setting enough for your needs.

When you first plug your Motion Wi-Fi Sensing Plug into an outlet, the light may pulse blue. That means that your plug isn’t set up and it’s in pairing mode. After a few minutes, this will stop whether or not the setup process has been completed.

After the pulsing pairing mode, the light will be solid blue if power is present through the outlet. If there is no light, your Motion Wi-Fi Sensing Plug isn’t going to be able to power another device.The solid blue light is not an indication of connectivity with your network.

If you tap the button, you can turn on and off the ability of your plug to provide power to another device plugged into it. This does not turn off the motion detection capability of your Motion Wi-Fi Sensing Plug, but be aware that the device plugged into the outlet might interfere with the detection. Corded devices that don’t have to sit directly in front of your sensor are recommended whenever possible.

Your data is tied to the Zone itself and not the Motion Wi-Fi Sensing Plug. Adding a new plug to a Zone will just expand the Zone and it potentially could detect more motion. If you are moving the plug to another location but keeping it registered to the same Zone, you are effectively changing the shape of the Zone but not its detection capabilities unless the new location is better or worse positioned than the previous location.

If you are removing a plug from a Zone, then you are shrinking the Zone size and the motion detection reporting should decrease. Moving a plug out of your Zone won’t change the existing data or add the previously recorded data to the new Zone, but it will affect the motion detection in the Zones moving forward.

Here are some things to check if you aren’t receiving the data you expect:

What is the sensitivity setting for your Zone?

• If your sensitivity is on a lower setting, it would take more movement to reach the minimum threshold for detection. Try raising the sensitivity in Settings > Manage Zones and clicking on the zone to see if that helps.

If you were to draw a line between all of your plugs, would it be a straight line or close to that as a triangle?

• Your Zone will have better coverage if your plugs face different directions to cover the area.

Are your plugs all using the same access point for your router?

• If not, please set up the plugs again so they all use the same access point.

Is your Zone (the area inside the shape if you draw lines between your plugs) larger than 1,500 square feet?

• If you need to cover an area larger than that, please consider adding another kit to your system to create another Zone. A larger Zone can be impacted by degraded Wi-Fi signal strength.

Are your plugs all on the same floor of the residence?

• If not, please consider purchasing another kit to cover both floors.

Is your Motion Zone set to cover the area where the person receiving care will spend the most time?

• If a single Zone cannot cover the whole residence, we recommend covering the common or living area. If you have 2 Motion Zones, we recommend covering the common or living area and the primary bedroom and bathroom area of the home. This will provide the best coverage in most cases. Of course, you should adjust this coverage to fit the needs and habits of the person receiving care.

Is the plug obstructed by an object that can block or alter Wi-Fi signals?

The plugs analyze the strength of the Wi-Fi signal. If the signal is weak in the first place, the plugs might not be able to accurately analyze the difference and may not report motion.

• If you’re using multiple Motion Zones, are they overlapping?
• If the Zones overlap, you may be receiving duplicate data as each zone counts the movement. In this case, please try adjusting your Zones so that the coverage does not overlap.

Here are some situations that may mean you need a warranty replacement. This is not a guarantee of replacement, but we recommend that you contact Threshold Care Customer Support immediately to see if troubleshooting will resolve the problem or if we need to send you a replacement. It is important to us that you have the experience you have paid for and rightfully expect.

1. If you plug your Motion Wi-Fi Sensing Plug into an outlet and a blue light does not show.
2. To troubleshoot this, first try plugging your sensor into another outlet. You can also verify that your desired outlet is receiving power by plugging another device directly into the outlet. If the other device can receive power, try a factory reset for your Motion Wi-Fi Sensing Plug and then check to see if the blue light comes on when plugged into the outlet.
3. If pressing the button on the side of your Motion Wi-Fi Sensing Plug does not turn on and off the ability to use it to power another device.
4. If 1 or 2 of the Motion Wi-Fi Sensing Plugs in your kit connect to your network but 1 or more do not even when placed in the same location as a functioning plug. A factory reset may resolve this issue for the misbehaving plug.
5. If your Motion Wi–Fi Sensing Plug arrives with visible damage or deformation out of the box.

The power draw for Motion Wi-Fi Sensing Plug is minimal when its outlet on the front is not in use. Otherwise, it depends on the device you are powering. Without another device plugged into your Motion Wi-Fi Sensing Plug, here is the power consumption based on whether you are providing power to the front outlet (indicated by the blue light on your plug):

1. If the power to the front outlet is turned off but your plug is still sensing motion, we expect it to use 1 watt or less.
2. If the power to the front outlet is turned on but no other devices are plugged in and the plug is still sensing motion, we expect it to use 1.5 watts or less.

We tried for this, but it isn’t a feature we were able to integrate with this version of Motion Wi-Fi Sensing Plug. We’ll consider it for future products if there is significant customer interest and we can source hardware with the capability.

Yes, the limitation for this is related to the power draw. The plugs are designed to support a light load like a light bulb or two, but cannot accommodate heavy equipment. In general, anything that is using a heating element or motor is not recommended because it requires a large draw of electricity (even if only at the beginning of use).

Examples of products that we DO NOT recommend using with Motion Wi-Fi Sensing Plug include but are not limited to space heaters, clothes irons, hair dryers, curling irons, microwave ovens, vacuums, or blenders.

Motion is measured by detecting the disturbance of Wi-Fi signal reaching Motion Wi-Fi Sensing Plugs as someone goes through the field created by all the devices that create the Motion Zone. When the minimum threshold of disturbance that qualifies as motion is detected, the Zone reports that motion has started and it will continue to monitor the motion until the disturbance no longer reaches the minimum threshold for 30 seconds. At this point, the Motion Zone will report that the motion has stopped.

Motion Wi-Fi Sensing Plugs cannot distinguish between different sources of motion. The closest it achieves is detecting if the amount of disturbance in the Wi-Fi signal is proportional to the size of a person. That said, you can adjust the detection sensitivity in the “Manage Zones” page to exclude smaller pets from motion detection. Larger pets like a big dog would be more difficult to exclude while still receiving the motion reports you want from the people inside the Residence.

This decision was made because we want to ensure that weekend data from Saturday and Sunday appear on the same graph as a single block that is distinct from the rest of the week. We know that weekday behavior is often different in homes compared to weekend behavior, so seeing that data together can be useful.

Your dashboard reports the quantity of motion and not the intensity of motion. Higher peaks mean that motion was detected more frequently within 5 minutes than times with lower peaks or a flat line. 

The columns on the dashboard display 5-minute intervals. Every minute, the algorithm checks to see if any motion was detected during that time. If the answer is yes, that adds to the aggregated height of the column. It takes 30 seconds for the app to register that motion has ended. It is expected that no motion detected will show as a flat line above the bottom of the graph.

If your motion detection line is at the very bottom of the graph where the dark line above the timeline usually is, that means that the motion is unknown. If you aren’t aware of a situation (such as a power or Internet outage) that would cause this state, you may want to try resetting the plugs and/or contacting Threshold Care Customer Support.

The app displays 5-minute intervals in the dashboard. When motion is reported by your Motion Zone, it is immediately registered and the information is sent to any mobile app with access to the Residence. This information should become visible in your app within 1 minute in optimal conditions. Please note that connectivity and other technical variables may cause a delay in the availability of that data. If you believe that your motion history and dashboard are not up to date, try force closing and restarting the Threshold app. This will force a complete reload of the motion information for the day.

If no motion is detected, it simply means that the Motion Wi-Fi Sensing Plugs didn’t record motion during the time you’re looking at. This isn’t necessarily cause for alarm! This could mean something as simple as everyone happened to be out of the Residence, someone decided to sleep in, no one is active in the Zone you set, or someone has been sitting still. There are many reasons why motion may not be detected that aren’t scary. But if you aren’t aware of an outing and the amount of time without motion seems different than usual, you may want to gently check in.

If your bar chart is showing no motion detected as a line across the bottom of the graph instead of at its usual position slightly above the bottom of the graph, your plug may not be connecting to our servers and you should follow our troubleshooting instructions.

First, try working through these questions to see if this could hold the answer:

What is the sensitivity setting for your Zone?

• If your sensitivity is on a lower setting, it would take more movement to reach the minimum threshold for detection. Try raising the sensitivity in Settings > Manage Zones to see if that helps.

If you were to draw a line between all of your plugs, would it be a straight line or close to that as a triangle?

• Your Zone will have better coverage if your plugs face different directions to cover the area.

Are your plugs all using the same access point for your router?

• If not, please set up the plugs again so they all use the same access point.

Is your Zone (the area inside the shape if you draw lines between your plugs) larger than 1,500 square feet?

• If you need to cover an area larger than that, please consider adding another kit to your system to create another Zone. A larger Zone can be impacted by degraded Wi-Fi signal strength.

Are your plugs all on the same floor of the residence?

• If not, please consider purchasing another kit to cover both floors.

Is your Motion Zone set to cover the area where the person receiving care will spend the most time?

If a single zone cannot cover the whole residence, we recommend covering the common or living area. If you have two Motion Zones, we recommend covering the common or living area and the primary bedroom and bathroom area of the home. This will provide the best coverage in most cases. Of course, you should adjust this coverage to fit the needs and habits of the person receiving care.

• Is the plug obstructed by an object that can block or alter Wi-Fi signals?
• The plugs analyze the strength of the Wi-Fi signal. If the signal is weak in the first place, the plugs might not be able to accurately analyze the difference and may not report motion.

If that doesn’t work, you can try resetting your Motion Wi-Fi Sensing Plugs by unplugging them and plugging them back in. At this point, we recommend contacting Threshold Care Customer Support for assistance if your plugs still aren’t detecting motion.

We are using social logins to provide access to Threshold accounts. Once you are logged in, the system will determine if an account has been associated with the login used. If not, an account will be created that represents you as a person. You will then be taken through the new user tutorial and experience the Threshold onboarding process.

While it is possible for us to receive basic information like your first and last name as well as your profile picture, we are not extracting any of that information and thus don’t have access to it in our systems.

Your social login will know that you used it to log into the Threshold app and when it happened, but will not have information about your activity in the app, settings, or anything else from your Threshold use.

When you open the Threshold app, the app will start collecting log information. Log information is saved for the last 10 operations that have been performed by the app since it was launched. If you close the app, all of the log data is deleted and cannot be restored. Opening the app again will begin a new log session. Log data is never sent automatically and we require you to submit logs manually if you want us to look at the data.

To submit a log, go to Settings > App Logs, then hit the Submit App Logs button after providing a brief description of the issue. Once we receive the description and log data, you will be provided an App Log ID. You can use this to reference your log in the Threshold app or when speaking with a Threshold employee.

Please note that our developers do not assist with troubleshooting. If you require troubleshooting assistance because the bug or error that you’re reporting is preventing your ability to use Threshold features, please contact Threshold Care Customer Support for assistance. We’re always happy to help!

Thanks for asking! The important thing is to be as specific as possible in the Description field. Please include the date, time, and time zone of the issue that you experienced as well as a thorough description of what occurred. Things like what button you pushed, the page, any error messages, what you expected as an outcome, and what actually happened are all great topics to include in a log.

IMPORTANT: Do NOT put personal information such as your email address in the Description field. We delete personal log data automatically after 2 months as a security measure and don’t want to keep any personal identifying information (PII) with the log record.

You will be able to see your log number and the information that you provided in the log page. One of the approved members of the team will review your log and use the information to address the issue you experienced or make a note of it if we are unable to find the root cause. If we find logs being sent from different people about the same problem, we may post a callout requesting further information if it would help us to resolve the issue.  

You will not be contacted directly about the content of your log. If you would like help with troubleshooting, please reach out to Threshold Customer Support so we can help resolve the issue. Logs are intended for the developers to fix bugs and our developers do not assist customers directly with troubleshooting.

After 2 months, your log will automatically have the personal information deleted from our database as a security measure. If you choose to, you can delete your log at any time before the automatic deletion process occurs.

In addition to any information that you put into the Description field, logs include information such as the ID for the person who sent the log and what their role is in the Residence, what device sent the log, the Zone, event information, and state changes. Everything in the log is collected only because it can help us troubleshoot issues that you may be experiencing.

Personal log data is deleted automatically after two months to avoid us maintaining data we don’t need anymore. After deletion, we keep a record of your log that includes the submission date, the description you filled in, your device’s OS at the time of submission, and the Threshold software version you had when the log was submitted. We keep that record to make sure we can track the longevity of bugs and the frequency of submissions for issues over time. The other data is fully deleted from our database and we will no longer have access to it.

Additionally, the service that holds the log data is not reachable through the Internet and the data is encoded at rest. Only 2 people in the company have access to the data and they are trained in security practices. We have other security measures in place, but there’s only so much we should share publicly for the sake of protecting the data.

None of your Threshold app data is stored somewhere reachable by the internet and we’ve added several layers of protection to make the data more difficult to reach. The repositories of information are highly fragmented with a complex data structure. We’ve also added several encryption mechanisms to secure the transportation of information and limit its access.

There are other protections in place, such as limiting the employees who could have access to data, but we don’t want to ring the dinner bell for bad actors by getting too specific here.

A Circle of Care is the list of people with access to a Residence in the Threshold app. Each person can have different roles assigned to them depending on their function in the care team. These roles adjust the permissions that each member of the Circle of Care has within the Residence.

We support social logins to connect to Threshold accounts and do not currently have a username and password method of logging in. Because of this, two-factor authentication would be supported by the social login provider (Amazon, Apple, Facebook, or Google) and the options are limited to what they support. We recommend that you use two-factor authentication with the platform you selected for your social login account.

We haven’t quantified the amount of data that Threshold Care uses yet. But here’s what information we can provide:

There are 4 data points for every 5 minutes in the dashboard motion graph for each zone and those use a significant amount of data by ratio. While it’s fairly safe to use our products on a data plan, you can minimize the amount of data used by keeping the app open. If you close and re-open the Threshold app, you will completely reload all of the data. If the amount of data used is a concern, we also recommend not using the Motion Log feature on a data plan because it uses a significant amount of data.

We know that everyone’s circumstances are different and we want to make sure to support everyone to the best of our ability. Smart home products can require a fair amount of data to function properly, so we hope these tips helped.

Another person using your account would need to have accessed your account using the platform you selected for the social login. Because of this, your first step is to regain control of the account you use for logging in first. Then change the password and add any additional security measures (such as two-factor authentication) to the account to protect it. This will give your Threshold account back and will also lock out the person who had accessed it if your social account platform forces devices to log in again after a password change.

In other words, if you use Apple for your Threshold app login and you suspect that someone is using your Threshold account, this is because they have access to your Apple account. Your first step would be to gain control of your Apple account again and that would restore access to your Threshold account.

Nami is an AI-powered Internet of Things (IoT) company. They’re our partner for motion sensing algorithms. 

Honestly, we don’t recommend it. Unlike other small appliances, heaters have power requirements that are more likely to risk overloading the smart plug and this can damage one or both devices or even cause dangerous situations. This is part of why many heaters come with warnings to not use them with smart plugs or power strips. As with any new device, please read through the manufacturer’s safety recommendations before use.