Later this week, we will exchange our 2024 calendars for shiny new 2025 models. This season lets us reflect on the previous year and find areas to improve upon. In our industry, we use the end of the year to find ways to improve our customers’ security. In fact, we get several calls from customers looking to upgrade their alarms at the beginning of each year. We always recommend installing occasional updates to your alarm to increase effectiveness. The New Year’s holiday makes for a great time to think about working with us to make this happen! Therefore, today’s post will focus on some of our most valuable alarm upgrade tips for the new year.
First, we’ll show you how we can upgrade your alarm monitoring this year. Our latest and greatest alarm monitoring option adds quite a bit of security as well as convenience. From there, we’ll detail how you can add smart security products that you can also control remotely. Then, we’ll shift our focus to some of the most unique security devices we can add to your alarm to make it more effective than ever. Finally, we’ll review our extended warranty options that can help you keep your alarm up and running. Now, let’s dive in with a look at our most effective form of alarm monitoring.
Upgrading Your Alarm Monitoring
Many of our customers still have outdated, phone-line based alarm monitoring in place to connect their security systems to our central station. Unfortunately, this leads to a couple issues. For starters, many homeowners continue to pay for phone lines that they rarely use, just to keep their monitoring intact. Additionally, phone line monitoring can prove unreliable, as phone lines go down due to weather and other circumstances fairly frequently.
Interactive cellular monitoring through Alarm.com allows users to control their alarm through a cell phone app and receive important alarm alerts instantaneously.
For these reasons, we recommend upgrading your security system to communicate with our central station via a piece of equipment known as a “cellular dialer.” Doing so allows for alarm monitoring without a phone line. Therefore, customers can now cancel their phone service and still have a monitored security system. Additionally, if a burglar cuts your phone lines or attempts to break in to your home while the lines are down, your system will still communicate with our central station.
Furthermore, your cellular dialer can add convenience and security above and beyond providing a reliable communication path. In our post on Using Your Smartphone to Add Security to Your Alarm, we discussed the generational expectation that customers can control their electronics with their smartphones. Our interactive cell dialer powered by Alarm.com allows users to arm and disarm their security systems remotely using the Alarm.com smartphone app. It also allows them to receive notifications regarding security system status changes. These status updates can include low battery alerts, power failure notices, and other similarly important messages. Adding these features is one of the most popular reasons homeowners upgrade their burglar alarms. Another reason that customers install this dialer has to do with our next tip!
Adding Smart Security Products to Your Home
In addition to communicating with our central station, our Alarm.com dialer also acts as a Z-Wave smart home hub. The term “Z-Wave” refers to a mesh network providing communication between our Alarm.com dialer and smart home devices that operate on this network. As one of the most popular smart home platforms, Z-Wave technology gives you many options to add smart security devices.
Our Z-Wave smart home offerings include several options for improving your security. For example, these devices include appliances such as Z-Wave light bulbs that you can control remotely to make your home look occupied while you are away. Additionally, Z-Wave keypad locks allow you to let contractors or house sitters into your home without providing a key. Z-Wave thermostats allow you to control your home’s temperature remotely and even create pre-set heating and cooling schedules. Installing smart cameras around your property can even provide you both live and recorded video footage that you can access on any internet-connected device at any time.
In addition to controlling these devices remotely, our Alarm.com customers can also receive alerts about their smart appliances. For example, Z-Wave locks will notify you when someone locks or unlocks the door, as well as the identity of the person involved. Smart thermostats will alert you to extreme temperature changes. This allows you to check for potential HVAC issues quickly. The convenience and security these products deliver make them invaluable in adding security for any home! Now, let’s continue with our alarm upgrade tips for the new year by detailing our most unique alarm sensors.
Monitored smoke detectors, such as this one by System Sensor, create an important fire department dispatch to any fire-related emergency at your home.
Leveling Up Your Security with Unique Security Sensors
Most alarm customers set up their security systems with a series of door sensors, window sensors, and motion detectors to detect a potential break-in attempt. However, we realize that homeowners also face a variety of other dangers. These range from life-threatening fire and carbon monoxide emergencies to damage from weather-related events. Luckily, we can install devices that interact with your existing security system to secure you against these threats! We offer monitored smoke and carbon monoxide detectors for your home. These detectors will create a siren response that can wake you up and alert you to an emergency, allowing you to escape. Additionally, our detectors’ sensing the presence of smoke or carbon monoxide will create a response from the local fire department. The life safety offered by these devices make them a powerful add-on to any home security system.
Furthermore, we offer sensors that create alerts for environmental disasters that have the potential to cause major damage to any home. For example, our “hi-lo temp” detectors can create an alert if your home experiences dangerously high or low temperatures. This can help alert you to frozen pipes during the wintertime. Additionally, we offer flood sensors that can detect the presence of water wherever we install them. Environmental sensors can help you detect and address these issues before they create a mess that takes a significant amount of time and money to repair! Now, let’s show you how you can ensure that all of this new security equipment will work for you when you need it most.
Ensuring Coverage of Your Alarm Equipment for the Years to Come
When we install an alarm, we also provide customers a means to keep equipment maintained and working with no unexpected expenses. We offer security equipment warranty plans to help ensure that your equipment works when you need it most. All of these warranty plans include free replacement of security equipment when it fails. Furthermore, some of them even include annual testing and inspections of burglar alarm-related components! Signing up for one of these plans greatly enhances your security’s long-term effectiveness. Of course, doing so can also save you money in cases where you require us to replace any security-related items. Adding this security has long remained one of our top alarm maintenance tips due to the short-term and long-term security and cost benefits, in addition to the additional peace of mind these plans provide.
Putting Our Alarm Upgrade Tips for the New Year to Work for You
We hope that these alarm upgrade tips for the new year help you secure your own home! Additionally, we also encourage you to contact us with any questions this post may raise. We will answer any and all of your security-related inquiries. Moreover, we also encourage you to take advantage of our free site survey program. We offer both new and existing customers complimentary security audits and equipment quotes. Over our 36-plus years in business, we’ve helped over a thousand customers experience the most effective security available. Together, we can keep your home, as well as your family, as safe and secure as possible!