Years ago when people bought a security system for their home, a monthly service contract from a professional monitoring company was tacked onto the package price. For a fee, the trained personnel at the monitoring station would watch 24/7 for emergencies like break-ins and fire, and dispatch the appropriate emergency responders, when necessary. While professional monitoring of a home security system is still important today, more and more homeowners are augmenting it with technology that enables them to monitor their homes themselves.
Popular Remote Monitoring Scenarios Thanks to the proliferation of Internet-connected devices, nearly every facet of home security can be monitored remotely from a smartphone app. Here are some of the most popular scenarios, according to Jay Kenny, senior vice president of marketing at Alarm.com.
- Making sure all of the doors are locked after the security system has been armed
- When a motion sensor is triggered, viewing a video clip of the action
- Receiving alerts when doors and windows are open
- Checking the status of the door locks to see if the kids have made it safely home from school
Built into numerous residential security systems, the remote monitoring technology allows homeowners to keep tabs on all sorts of conditions in and around the home: inspect which doors are unlocked; review a log of who entered the home and when; review the status of motion, water, and other sensors; and access real-time video from surveillance cameras (see Popular Remote Monitoring Scenarios below). All a user needs to do is log on to a smartphone app (usually a free add-on to the monitoring service) to get the full scoop. And should an emergency happen—like a house fire or burglary—the security system is able to immediately notify homeowners with a text message. It’s a widespread trend leveraged by the growing availability of security systems intended to be installed by homeowners themselves.
Wake Up and Smell the Smoke
So does this shift to DIY security mean that professional monitoring is no longer necessary? Should you save some money by monitoring your house yourself? Absolutely not, says Duane Paulson, senior vice president of product and market development at Nortek Security & Control. “Say you’re asleep or don’t have your phone. You may not always be available to take care of a critical issue at home, but a professional monitoring station is.” According to Paulson and other manufacturers of security systems, self-monitoring should be thought of as an adjunct to professional monitoring, and to be used mainly as way to be aware of what’s happening on your property. “Self-monitoring capabilities provide property awareness, but there’s no substitute for professional monitoring when it comes to security,” adds Jay Kenny, senior vice president of marketing at Alarm.com.
Straddling the Line
Still, there are no hard and fast rules about whether to invest in a security system you can monitor yourself or one that’s professionally monitored. “With only 25 percent of Americans owning a traditional, professionally monitored security system, there’s a huge market of people who’ve never embraced the return-on-investment of the professional monitoring model,” says Jason Domangue, vice president of Piper, a subsidiary of iControl Networks. That’s why iControl Networks, which has supported the professionally monitored security industry for more than a decade with its cloud-based operating platform, has recently developed a self-monitored, self-installed security solution for consumers called Piper. With the introduction of the affordable home security and video surveillance system, iControl Networks is straddling both sides of the monitoring field, and along with another home security system manufacturer, Swann, hopes to blur the line between professional and homeowner monitoring even more by giving consumers the flexibility to pay for professional monitoring when they need it and skip the expense when they don’t. Swann’s SwannOne system is one of the first home monitoring solutions to offer on-demand professional monitoring. For example, you can choose to monitor the system and its connected sensors, surveillance cameras, and other equipment yourself, and when you go on a weekend getaway, pay $7.95 to have your house professionally monitored. There are also options to pay for a week’s, a month’s, or a year’s worth of professional monitoring.
The Car-to-Home Connection
Now, even the condition and whereabouts of your car are no secret, thanks to monitoring innovation by security manufacturers. Honeywell, for example, recently added a vehicle location tracking system to its Total Connect line of products and services. A GPS dongle provided by a Honeywell security dealer plugs into the OBD port of a car (like your teenager’s car) to communicate with smartphones assigned to the system. Should the car travel beyond a certain predefined boundary, a rule, which is set up in the phone app, directs a text message to be sent to specified smartphones.
Capitalizing on Control & the Cloud
The ability to patrol a home from a mobile device is only part of the remote monitoring equation. Connected security systems also enable homeowners to respond conveniently and appropriately to alerts, data, and other information. A common scenario: You receive an alert on your smartphone when a motion sensor by the front door is triggered. By logging into the system, you can access a surveillance camera to see that the motion sensor was set off by the UPS delivery person. You can then respond by using the security system’s smartphone app to unlock the electronic deadbolt on the front door, wait for the package to be deposited in the foyer, then relock.
Setups like this utilize the automation capabilities common of most of today’s security systems, which are relying more and more on the cloud rather than their own internal processors to facilitate communication between devices inside the home and with mobile devices outside the home. Another big reason for the shift to the cloud: prevention against hacking. As the number of remotely accessible, IP-enabled security devices (and other types of smart home devices) continues to grow, so does homeowners’ concerns over cyberhacking. It’s tough to set up VPNs and firewalls in the home level to impede Internet threats; it’s much easier and effective to do so in the cloud where providers like Alarm.com and iControl Networks perform routine maintenance and upgrades to maintain a safe, secure communications platform for professionally monitored security systems. (Alarm.com uses a cellular connection into the home for greater reliability and enhanced security.)
In addition to safeguarding the integrity of an Internet-connected security system, the cloud simplifies remote monitoring features by enabling homeowners (and professional security installers) to easily set up their own rules and routines from a smartphone app and store those rules, as well as other security related data (such as video clips from surveillance cameras, entry and exit logs from electronic door locks) in safe, accessible, virtual repositories. Changes to any stored rules can be easily made by a homeowner or installer through that cloud. In addition to being a convenient way to keep a security system up to date, it’s a money-saver, as no new hardware is necessary to add to the house.
False Alarm Crackdowns: One More Reason to Keep Your Professional Monitoring Contract
DIY-installed and -monitored security systems are on the rise, but the trend doesn’t seem to be hurting professional security dealers and monitoring companies.
Besides the fact that self-monitoring through a smartphone app provides spotty home protection at best (what happens when you’re on a plane and can’t use your smartphone?), your local emergency responders may not be as quick to react to a call from a homeowner as they would from a professional monitoring station. Certain jurisdictions in North America are cracking down on emergency calls received by private homeowners. In Canada, Toronto police are considering not responding to such calls, arguing that the overwhelming number of alarm calls are resource-draining false alerts, according to the Toronto Star. In 2012, just 300 of the 20,000 private alarm calls fielded by Toronto emergency services turned out to be legitimate.
Elsewhere, jurisdictions are requiring video verification or witness verification before dispatching emergency personnel, which has dramatically reduced wasted resources.
Security industry analyst Jeff Kessler of Imperial Capital cites places like Salt Lake City, where police responses to alarms went from 10,500 in 1998 to 323 last year, due to the city’s crackdown on false alarms. The result: improved response times for actual emergencies.
The Final Word
Despite the financial appeal of being able to sidestep a professional monitoring service by watching over your home security system from your own smartphone, for many households, it’s an unwise approach. Think of self-monitoring as a feature that enriches your lifestyle—one that brings awareness, efficiency, and convenience to everyday activities that happen in your house. Professional monitoring, combined with the cloud, continues to provide the ultimate in home protection. EH
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