My new house has an ADT system but it's unmonitored at the moment. I balked at the 3 year contract they offered and the reports of poor customer satisfaction, so I'm trying to find an alternative monitoring service. Any suggestions? I saw someone mentioned OMNI, I'm trying to read up on them.
Comcast also wants a 3 year contract. Might be the industry standard. They'll waive the activation and installation and then its $22/mth as long as you have the triple play.
For my new house, I am looking at going to www.safemart.com and getting a DIY wireless home security system. Monitoring is very cheap and they even have an online system where you can monitor/control you system via the internet. Regular telephone monitoring is like $9 a month, and cellular monitoring is about $27/month. This is compared to about $35/$50 for ADT if I remember right. I don't know a lot about this company so I can't recommend them, but it looks interesting enough for me to try and I don't believe there are any contracts.
My parents recently switched to these guys LINK and have a cellular link, the part and installation cost 60.00 and the service is 17.00 a month with no contract.. I'll be switching to them when my contract come up..
Both options above sound really intriguing. Smith Thompson looks like they have very high customer satisfaction and a price/cost guarantee, while SafeMart has nice tech options like text message alerts. Now I'm even more torn ... which should I choose?
Are these false alarms you'll are talking about the kind where the siren goes off and all the neighbors come outside wondering what the hell is going on? Or, is it a silent arm? I remember one time a friend and I were cutting yards in the neighborhood when we were teenagers to make some money. We were cutting this one lady's house as she was a regular customer. She had to leave. Well, we are halfway cutting her yard and the wheel fell off the mower. Not knowing she had an alarm, we opened her back door (which was unlocked) through the garage (which was open) to look for a pen and paper to leave her a note as to why her yard is only half cut. lol. Well...the loudest alarm I've ever heard in my life went off when the back door was opened. Every single neighbor came outside to see what was up. My friend and I felt like idiots. Probably about an hour later...some guy pulls up who can disable the alarm. That fracking thing was louder than a tornado siren and you could likely hear it from blocks away. I just thought it was ridiculous how loud it was.
Actually, this doesn't ever happen...except that once. We knew her quite well. We had been in her house before. It makes no sense to leave your garage wide open, leave your backdoor unlocked, and then activate the alarm when you leave. A normal person would have locked up and closed the garage. So, I fail to see how this story is exactly why you have an alarm system. We were trying to do the right thing. I guess we should have just left with no note and half cut yard. Here you go! Enjoy!
Thanks for the link man, I've been looking for someone to monitor my place and this sounds like a good deal. Have your parents been happy with the service?
When I bought my house in 2001, it was wired with an ADT system. I had ADT come out to check it and activate it so they could monitor it. After that I started getting false alarms and it would even go off when the mail was put through the mail slot on my front door. I switched over to Brinks. When they came out to re-wire the system, they noticed that the "new" battery the ADT tech put in was leaking battery acid. After I switched over I had nothing but great customer service from Brinks. They always ask for my password. Brinks >>>>>> ADT.
I decided to go with Smith Thompson. Calling their sales rep now. The no extra cost wireless monitoring did it for me. Burglars won't have the option of cutting my phone lines to disable my alarm response.
I know Smith Thompson is up here in the Dallas area and always used to get good reviews. They were cheaper than the other big names, too.
On the other side of the coin is my story : I left my door partially closed as I tried lugging a delivery I got that was in a large box. Well when I got in with the package, I kind of kicked the door shut, but it didn't shut competely. Long story short, that door stayed "almost closed" overnight. I went to work the next morning. The door is still "almost closed". I came back 8-9 hours later and the alarm is blaring and my front door is open. I think "damn, burglars!" But after looking around there was no one in the house and nothing was missing. I believe the wind, which had been howling all day, had blown the door open since it wasn't completely closed. My alarm isn't monitored, but nobody in the neighborhood bothered leaving a note, calling police, etc and my alarm is loud as hell. lol.
this is the part i was responding to: Well...the loudest alarm I've ever heard in my life went off when the back door was opened. Every single neighbor came outside to see what was up.
ADT won't leave me the eff alone. I think ADT is the best deal though. They charge a lot, but they give you the most too. ADT is willing to switch out every component of my current system for free. Brinks said they would switch out a couple of pieces and only one keypad.
I have Brink's. It was part of the deal when I got the house. I haven't had any problems. I live alone so any false alarms can be blamed on me. Opening the back door in the morning to let the dog out without disarming the alarm makes one feel pretty dumb. You can disable the alarm from the keypad, so no calls from the company making you feel any worse. Luckily I haven't had a break-in or anything. I have glass break sensors as well so if a window is broken, the alarm will go off.
