Re: Which system is better?

["Bill" <billnomailnospamx@xxxxxxxxx>]

As to monitored systems and response time, most home security systems
basically pick up the phone, dial a number to an alarm business monitoring
station, and transmit your alarm information to the alarm company. Then the
alarm company picks up the phone and calls the police.

The problem with this is many alarm monitoring centers are out of town. They
will have one large center to serve a regional area. Sometimes the phone
lines going out of town can be busy and your alarm system may need to call
several times before it finally gets through. This is rare these days, but
still happens sometimes.

There are more expensive alarm systems available which are always connected
to a separate phone line and instantly notify the alarm company if there is
an alarm.

So you get what you pay for, but if you need "for sure" instant
notification, it is available.

Then as to response time, in some areas the police get tons of false alarms.
Burglar alarms go off, and most of the time it winds up being a malfunction
of the alarm system. So the police get to thinking alarms are a waste of
their time and take their time responding. Sometimes taking 30 minutes or
longer to respond.

But again you get what you pay for and can pay for optional services. Some
alarm companies have private armed guards who will respond to your alarm
quicker than the police. So you can have a private guard service respond as
well as the police and chances are someone will show up sooner than if you
had just the police responding.

And the alarm monitoring company has people working there. When an alarm is
transmitted to the alarm company, these people can notify anyone you want.
Maybe you have a neighbor who is a good friend. The alarm company could
notify the police and your neighbor. A neighbor would be able to get there
quicker than anyone else. Or call you on your cell phone or call you at
work. Whatever you want, mix/match!

Also a monitored alarm system can send different signals or alarms. You can
have burglar signal in which case they notify the police, fire signal in
which case they notify the fire department, and medical in which they call
the paramedics (or whoever you want). And you can have a remote control
which you carry with you and this can signal an attack by an intruder, or it
could be assigned to a medical alarm and maybe an elderly person in the home
would carry it around - press the button if having medical problems.

Or maybe you have a vacation home and the basement is prone to flooding, you
could have a water alarm and the alarm company would notify just you for
that specific signal. Or you may own a business and there is a lot of
refrigerated meat - you could monitor the temperatures in the freezers and
have the alarm company notify you (and others if you are not available) that
the temperature is above a certain point or the electricity is off or both.

Then you can have silent alarms where only a signal is sent to the alarm
company or it could also sound a local siren, bell, etc. And each signal the
alarm sends can be set as to if it sounds a local siren/bell or not. You
could have a silent burglar alarm and also a fire alarm which has an audible
alarm. These different alarms are called "zones" and can be programmed
anyway you want.


"O.B.McClintock"  wrote in message
> We are modernizing our home and want a security system.  I am not
> familiar with a monitored system as we have always had just a local
> alarm in the past. Can I get some honest input from people with such a
> system as to reliability and response time. This will help me make a
> decision. I am considering Electrowatchman, A.D.T., and Brinks. Maybe
> you all know of better ones. Thank you very much !!!