Security System Monitoring

What kind of response do you want your home security system to provide in the event of an emergency? The answer to this question will determine the importance of a monitored system for your particular application.

Monitored alarm systems are a necessity if a response team is expected to arrive within a reasonable time at any scene of intrusion, fire, or other emergency.  Most safety alarms, such as the average smoke or carbon dioxide detectors or burglary alarms, are non-monitored alarm systems, which means they will alert to the presence of danger anyone within your home or business.  A non-monitored alarm can deter or scare off an intruder, but it will not call for assistance. 

If you are not there to respond to a non-monitored alarm, there is no one there to do anything.  Your neighbors may not see the fire or the intrusion until it's too late. A monitored system brings the comfort of knowing help is on the way.

Notifying a response team

Home security systems are only as good as the information they give.  Only through a monitored alarm system can the information be quickly and effectively sent to response teams, whether they are fire, police, or medical responders. 

A monitored alarm system, when activated by smoke or intrusion or anything else, will alert not only the actual people within the home; but equally as important, a monitoring agency receives the same signal.  Once receiving the signal, the monitors respond in several ways.  They call the residency from which the alarm was sent in order to verify the alarm.  They will also call a dispatcher to put a response team on route to the residency in question.

On its own, each alarm is a tool to alert those in the immediate audible range.  But in considering home security, you must ask yourself, “Who will hear the alert?”  If alarms are not hooked up to a home security system and are not monitored, they alert those in hearing range.  The system may even deter or frighten the intruder.  However, if the system is monitored by a 24-hour monitoring agency, the monitors will receive the signal and call a dispatcher to send out the proper response team.

The economics of monitoring

To get a monitored alarm system is very easy and affordable. Safemart offers professional, UL listed 24-hour monitoring for only $9 a month. And this low monthly cost is sometimes completely offset by the savings in homeowners insurance that monitored systems provide.

Looking for more information on home monitoring? Visit our home security user forum and get the answers you need.