In today’s technology-driven world, people appreciate the ability to connect as many things in their home as possible. Smart home products have added tremendous convenience to people’s everyday lives. The ability to control these devices through a centralized in-home product and/or smart home app has become the norm, and not the exception. Believe it or not, these expectations have even made their mark on the security industry! We offer security solutions that we can tie in to a variety of smart devices that add convenience and security. Moreover, we can provide a singular platform that you can use to program and control all of these devices! In this post, we show you how we provide home automation through Alarm.com.
To begin, we’ll explain the Alarm.com cellular dialer and monitoring service. Having this background knowledge will go a long way towards understanding the rest of this post. From there, we’ll explain how we create a connection between smart home appliances and the Alarm.com platform. Then, we’ll look at some specific products that we use to help secure our customers’ homes. These range from Z-Wave connected devices to wifi-based video products. We often surprise customers with the variety of devices we can tie into their alarm panel to help them better secure their homes! Now, let’s dive in with a look at the Alarm.com cellular dialer.
A Background on the Alarm.com Cellular Dialer
One of the biggest features of a home burglar alarm lies in its monitoring service. This service involves connecting your alarm to our central station. In turn, this connection can create a police dispatch upon alarm activation if necessary. Obviously, creating this response adds quite a bit of security and value to your alarm. However, traditional monitoring methods have some imperfections.
Traditionally, we would connect an alarm to our central station using an onsite phone line. A few short decades ago, almost every property offered this type of communication path. Of course, phone lines have gotten increasingly unpopular with the advent of cellular technology. Furthermore, phone outages would often create issues with our monitored alarms, leaving them unsecured until the lines received the needed repairs.
Our cellular dialer customers can use the Alarm.com smartphone app to control their alarm systems, as well as their smart home devices, remotely.
Luckily, we offer a much more modern solution for alarm monitoring in the form of our Alarm.com cellular dialer. This piece of equipment uses cellular networks to create reliable, consistent alarm monitoring. Moreover, Alarm.com customers can also use the Alarm.com smartphone app to control their security system remotely. Obviously, this adds tremendous security and convenience. Forget to arm your security system? Now you can fix the issue with the push of a button. Want to create alerts whenever someone arms or disarms the alarm? You can do that as well! With the basics of the Alarm.com dialer and app in place, let’s look at how can create home automation through Alarm.com!
The Connection Between Alarm.com and Home Automation
As we’ve already mentioned, Alarm.com uses cellular technology to communicate to our central station. However, it also has a couple more powerful communication methods built in. For starters, the Alarm.com dialer also acts as a Z-Wave smart home receiver. 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 customers control these smart home appliances with the same Alarm.com app that they use to control their security systems.
Additionally, the Alarm.com dialer also has the ability to use wifi for communication in addition to a cellular network. In many cases, this helps with central station communication. The dialer will use wifi to call out when cell coverage in an area is weak, just like a regular cell phone will. Additionally, this wifi connectivity also allows the Alarm.com dialer to communicate with wifi cameras. In the next couple sections, we’ll get into detail with the devices that take advantage of both Z-Wave and wifi-based technologies. Let’s get started with a look at some Z-Wave home automation products now!
Z-Wave Based Home Security Products
Over the past several years, smart security solutions have risen sharply in popularity. This equipment can provide instant security feedback and, in some instances, even fix issues for you. The smart security devices described in this section take advantage of our Alarm.com cell dialer’s built-in Z-Wave hub. For example, smart lights allow you to turn your lights on and off and even dim them remotely. This can add security by making your home look occupied in your absence, while also allowing you to always return to a well-lit home. Smart locks can also let you track access to your home, and even control your locks, remotely as well. We even offer a smart garage door opening kit to turn any garage door into a smart garage door, as well!
Finally, our universal Z-Wave outlets can offer you control over any household appliance. Most popularly, using these outlets with devices that present fire hazards can provide security and life safety to your alarm. For example, coffee makers and beauty devices such as hair curlers and hair dryers can create a major fire risk if left powered on and unattended. Plugging these devices into a Z-Wave outlet allows you to ensure they get turned off before creating an issue! Next up, let’s check out an important form of wifi-based smart security.
Alarm.com Wifi Camera Offerings
Our smart camera customers experience several unique security features. These cameras connnect to your Alarm.com dialer via wifi, and store motion-basec clips in the cloud for future viewing. Like any cameras, smart cameras provide the ability to both deter crime and to help you solve any crime that occurs on your property. Additionally, smart cameras also provide many benefits that traditional security cameras do not.
Installing smart cameras allows to receive instant alerts upon detecting motion, such as this Alarm.com smart camera alert.
For example, these cameras can send a live video notification to your phone upon detecting motion. This allows you to check in on any issues you may experience in real time. As an added bonus, our Alarm.com smart cameras also feature the power of video analytics. This allows your cameras to recognize the difference between motion caused by a person, an animal, or a vehicle. In turn, this makes it easier for you to create effective video searches when looking to find video of a particular event.
In addition to standard smart cameras, we also install video doorbell cameras. This type of camera allows you to communicate with visitors who ring your doorbell. Activation of your smart doorbell will create a live video alert on your smartphone. This alert prompts you to have a conversation with anyone who rings your doorbell. The added security and convenience offered by these doorbells make them an extremely popular security addition for any application. Similarly to our smart camera offerings, we recommend installing Alarm.com video doorbell products. Now, let’s take a look at a couple different types of smart security solutions that further lock down your entry points!
Putting Home Automation Through Alarm.com to Your Advantage
We hope that this post shows you how home automation through Alarm.com adds security. Of course, we encourage you to contact us with any questions this post may raise for you. We will happily answer any and all of your security-related queries. Furthermore, we also invite you to take advantage of our free site survey program. We offer complimentary security audits and equipment quotes to both new and existing customers alike. While on site, we can address your existing security concerns. Moreover, we can also share our own concerns based on our observations of your property.
Perhaps you have a full array of security products in place, but wish to upgrade your security. Or, maybe you have yet to commit to a security plan, and want to get started. Either way, we are here to help! Over our 35 years in business, we’ve helped over a thousand customers create complete security plans. Together, we can help you create a security solution that keeps you, your most valued possessions, and your family as safe and secure as possible!