Whether you wish to secure your home or business, installing a monitored security system represents one of of the most effective security measures that you can take. These alarms create a blaring siren response upon activation. In turn, this alerts anyone on the premises to the emergency. Additionally, it often scares the perpetrator away as well. Moreover, our alarm monitoring services add an important layer to this security. Upon receiving a signal from your alarm, our central station reaches out to you and, if necessary, dispatches the proper authorities. Obviously, this adds quite a bit of security to any property. Furthermore, we often surprise people by providing monitored that extends above and beyond providing burglar-related security. Following these steps can help you provide the best all-around security possible. Today, we’ll show you how we can assist in making the most of your alarm monitoring!
First, we’ll explain how our monitoring services help secure your property. Having this knowledge in place will go a long way towards understanding the rest of the material presented here. From there, we’ll discuss some unique alarm equipment that can help you monitor your property for some of the varied security threats that we alluded to above. Then, we’ll shift our focus to our “open/close” monitoring service that can help you better track alarm use and access to your property. This service proves especially popular with our commercial customers. We’ll also show you the power of interactive monitoring through our Alarm.com cellular dialer. Finally, we’ll review the security provided by installing smart cameras, one of the fastest-growing areas of the industry. Now, let’s dive in with a look at our security monitoring service.
Understanding Our Monitoring Service
At this point, you may find yourself wondering, “What do you mean by our ‘central station?’ Who actually monitors our alarm?” Good questions! Most alarm companies partner with a large call center to monitor their customers’ alarms. Some companies attempt to fulfill this service on their own. Unfortunately, this can lead to subpar service. Most security companies simply do not have the capacity to call more than a few customers at once. This can lead to long wait times before hearing about an alarm.
The Rapid Response Monitoring Center has the capacity and technology to effectively monitor all of our customers’ alarms.
For this reason, many companies, including ourselves, turn to outside call centers to provide this service. Our chosen monitoring partner, Rapid Response Monitoring, represents the best of the best in alarm monitoring. For starters, Rapid Response has the backup power and phone capacity to withstand any disaster. They also have the physical personnel to quickly reach out to all of our customers whenever help is needed.
Furthermore, Rapid Response has an Underwriter’s Laboratory (UL) listing for security monitoring. Most central stations do not have this qualification! A UL listing for security monitoring means that the central station must meet several security-related guidelines, and pass an independent inspection. It also means that workers must go through specific, rigorous training before interacting with customers. Now that you know the basics behind how our central station operates, let’s look at how installing unique security sensors can aid your efforts in making the most of your alarm monitoring.
Installing Unique Monitored Security Sensors
When we install an alarm, we generally install sensors on every exterior door. Additionally, we also secure other areas of your home or business with sensors such as motion detectors and glass break detectors. Furthermore, we also like to install equipment that secures your property against other threats as well. For example, we can install monitored smoke, heat and carbon monoxide detection to provide a valuable level of life safety to your alarm. These devices will create a fire department dispatch that can save your property in your absence, or even save lives if someone is present during one of these events! We highly recommend adding this security to any existing alarm system.
We also offer sensors that create a central station response for environmental issues that have the potential to cause damage to your property. For example, our “hi-lo temperature” detectors can create an alert if they detect dangerously hot or cold conditions. This can help alert you to frozen pipes or HVAC equipment failures. Furthermore, 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 check out some monitoring options that can make your alarm monitoring even more effective.
Open/Close Reports
While many customers may not know the unique term for this service, many of them ask for it. Open/close reports provide a log of who arms and disarms your security system, and when. This security monitoring option has plenty of potential uses. For example, many business owners use it to ensure that employees show up on time to work. Disarming the alarm system at this points creates an “opening” event. Likewise, arming the system at the end of the day also creates a “closing” event. We have a couple options for customers wishing to track these events, so let’s review both.
Adding open/close reports allows you to monitor when people arm and disarm your security system.
Unsupervised Open/Close Reports
The most basic level of open/close reports is receiving “unsupervised” reports. At this level, the central station sends the alarm owner a weekly email report detailing each opening and closing event. For many business and homeowners, this periodic check-in provides enough detail. In addition to seeing what times people armed and disarmed the alarm system, the reports can also help track who did the arming or disarming. If you provide different codes for different users, the open/close report includes the code used to arm and disarm the security system at different times. Therefore, if someone shows up late, leaves early, or disarms the security system after hours, you will know who it was. Our next level of open/close reports takes this security concept one step further.
Supervised Open/Close Reports
Our “supervised” level of open/close reports also gives some real-time monitoring support. When we set a customer up with this service, we set up an “expected” schedule of openings and closings. For example, business owners may expect employees to disarm the security system every day by 7am. At the end of the day, they may expect the system armed again by 6pm. If either one of these events does not happen, our central station will call our subscribers and let them know. This allows our customers to look into the situation immediately. In this manner, supervised open/close reports helps customers track security system use in real time. This in turn helps them ensure that people show up when expected and arm the security system when leaving. Let’s look at another service that provides our users both extra security and peace of mind.
Cell-Based Alarm Monitoring
As we mention earlier, traditional alarm monitoring relies on a hardwired telephone line to create a connection between an alarm and a central station. However, a couple of factors have started to make this form of alarm monitoring feel outdated. For one, many customers have shed their landlines. These customers generally install cellular dialers to maintain their alarm’s connection to the central station without a traditional phone line in place. Cellular dialers use a cell phone network, rather than a landline, to communicate to the central station. A second factor in installing these dialers lies in their ability to communicate even if burglars cut a property’s phone lines. Many thieves take this precaution, so using a monitoring service that doesn’t get affected by this act adds tremendous security.
Alarm.com cameras represent one of the most efficient and effective ways to add surveillance to your home or business.
In addition, many customers prefer the extra functionality and convenience provided through interactive cellular monitoring. Some cellular dialers, such as ours powered by Alarm.com, offer these services. Interactive monitoring allows users to control their security system remotely. Forget to set the alarm on the way to work? Simply grab your phone and use the Alarm.com app to take care of it! Interactive cell monitoring also generates custom security alerts for events such as system arming and disarming events, low batteries, or sensor trouble signals. The ability to control and track use of your alarm remotely make interactive monitoring one of our tops tips for making the most of your alarm monitoring. Next up, let’s see how we can add cameras to your security monitoring for an added layer of security!
Video Monitoring Add-Ons
Our Alarm.com customers have the ability to add a couple powerful security devices to their network of monitored alarm devices. For starters, Alarm.com smart cameras allow you to check in on your property in real time on your phone. This gives you “eyes” on your home or business in real time on demand. Moreover, these cameras also store a months’ worth of motion-based video clips in the cloud for future viewing.
On a similar note, our Alarm.com video doorbells provide a unique level of door security. These devices allow you to review both live and recorded video, just like standard Alarm.com smart cameras. Additionally, they also allow you to have a 2-way conversation with anyone at the door. Adding this video streaming and storage does boost your monitoring rates slightly, but many customers find the added security well worth the cost! For this reason, our smart camera and video streaming services have represented one of our most popular lesser-known alarm monitoring features of the last several years.
Putting it All Together and Making the Most of Your Alarm Monitoring
We hope that this post helps you understand how we can help you with making the most of your alarm monitoring! Of course, we always encourage you to contact us with any questions this material may raise for you. If you feel like you might want to take advantage of some of these benefits, we also offer free site surveys to both new and existing customers alike. We can set up a convenient time to look at your property and address your existing security concerns. During our visit, we can also make our own suggestions based on observations of your home. Together, we can create a complete security plan, including the best equipment and monitoring options for your security needs, to help keep you and your property as safe and secure as possible!