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Monitored Burglar Alarm Contract Renewal - Nsar1

Got a monitored alarm and just got the renewal price of the contract of £598 which struck me as steep. Never thought to shop around and can't seem to find any comparison sites for this. Anyone swapped their monitoring company for a better price?

Cheers

Monitored Burglar Alarm Contract Renewal - movilogo

Is there any specific reason to use 3rd party monitoring company?

You can fit motion detecting IP camera which can send you alerts. The promise of burglar alarm is that the sound would alert the neighbours who would pop in or call the police.

Monitored Burglar Alarm Contract Renewal - Chris M

A few close neighbours have alarms and there are others slightly further away. Occasionally we hear one going off for several hours and in the summer months at night, it's blooming annoying. Assume they aren't monitored.

Neighbour opposite has a monitored alarm and if it goes off, they would phone me up as I have a key and the widget to reset it. I don't charge my neighbour anything for this service :)

Really don't see why any of my neighbours feel they need an alarm. Very low crime area and in over 20 years here I'm not aware of a single burglary on our 'estate' of 50 or so properties.

Monitored Burglar Alarm Contract Renewal - movilogo

Alarm is just a deterrent for petty theft. If organized criminals target your home then they will enter whether alarmed or not.

If your neighbours have alarms then it is best to have a basic audible alarm so that your house don't appear as easy target to thieves.

Monitored Burglar Alarm Contract Renewal - Chris M

"If your neighbours have alarms then it is best to have a basic audible alarm so that your house don't appear as easy target to thieves."

Conversely, having an alarm may indicate you having something worth nicking.

Monitored Burglar Alarm Contract Renewal - Nsar1

Why do we have a monitored system? Let's just say we have a code word to use if we call 999.

Edited by Nsar1 on 10/07/2021 at 18:37

Monitored Burglar Alarm Contract Renewal - Engineer Andy

Got a monitored alarm and just got the renewal price of the contract of £598 which struck me as steep. Never thought to shop around and can't seem to find any comparison sites for this. Anyone swapped their monitoring company for a better price?

Cheers

Sadly this type of thing is par for the course in many building services (contruction industry) markets - the same sort of thing happens with commercial systems for security, smoke/fire and especially equipment/energy monitoring for building managers and their teams.

The OEM supplier charges a low rate (sometimes at a loss) to buy the equipment, but because it is either not compatible with other makes or not completely so and requires either specialist monitoring/repair staff or replacement parts only they provide, they've now got you over a barrel, especially if they provide off-site monitoring (as your security system appears to have), and thus they feel comfortable charging high rates from year 2 onwards, because the cost to change is still way higher than paying the subs for another 10-15 years.

Rather like computer printer manufacturers who charge (say) £40 for a new printer which comes with short-filled ink cartridges and then charge £25 per replacement ink cartridge, with other replacement parts (plus the unit only has a 1 or 2 year warranty) being expensive and often can only be fitted by a trained person. That and spares are only arounf for about 5 years before either disappearing altogether or going up to ridiculous prices.

Lovely wheeze. Bad for most people.

The best thing for building services systems is to either find systems/equipment that needs little to no off site monitoring and that is very reliable long term, or is reasonably priced and reliable but uses generic systems, especially the software, so doesn't need to be attended to by specialists from one firm or one who covers your region (and thus has a monopoly or near one).

I'm no expert on such things (I dealt with the mechanical engineering side, not the electrical engineering side and have been out of the industry for 4 years now), but these days I would have expected some systems to be more generic and to be able to interface with smart phones via the internet and an app, so end users like you can monitor them, as long as the phone is on.

I live in a low crime area and thankfully don't need a security system for my home, but hopefully someone else here may have some experience with one. I agree that it's only worth getting a system if you have a crime problem in your area and need some extra protection for valuables/against damage, as having one when others don't may indicate your home being a 'worthwhile target' as there's something valuable and/or easy to steal.

It's often at least as good to improve the security of your gates, doors (including garage if you have one) and windows over the longer term, or use sensor-driven security lights at certain entrances, which normally don't need to be monitored.

Monitored Burglar Alarm Contract Renewal - Falkirk Bairn

I have 3 sons - all with alarms, lights etc around the house

Son 1 - Yale burglar alarm - battery operated, self install with sensors on doors. Back, front & garage - the burglar jemmied a window at the back during the day. Now has more sensors. garden camera, house camera and lighting all over the back of the house. Gets notifications on his iphone. Spent around £600 in total.

Son2 - House system installed when house was new - failed after 6/7 years and annual costs were £40/month IIRC Replaced by new system - All entry door sensors, mains lighting with sensors all around, 2 garden battery cameras (£100+ each) and same make in hall & lounge - all linked to iphone. Spent well over £1200

Son3 - 18 month old house, all singing & dancing as part of new house both wired and wifi sensors - around $1250 maintenance & monitoring service per year. Links to iphones as well as the call centre. Fallen over 3 x in 18 months as sensors failed sends control panel into a meltdown of flashing lights & lets call centre know. Sensors replaced.

Sons 1 & 2 seem to have more reliability from their "Amazon buys"

Monitored Burglar Alarm Contract Renewal - movilogo

would have expected some systems to be more generic and to be able to interface with smart phones via the internet and an app, so end users like you can monitor them, as long as the phone is on.

Many systems come with a SIM inside which can dial designated phone numbers if intrusion is detected. Of course, you have to make sure there is enough credit in the SIM to be able to dial you.

Rather like computer printer manufacturers who charge (say) £40 for a new printer which comes with short-filled ink cartridges and then charge £25 per replacement ink cartridge,

I had this frustration for years when I used inkjet printers at home. Now moved to laser printer (don't print color stuff at home) and experience is better. In laser toners don't dry and compatible cartridges are lot good value for money. With inkjet, even cheaper compatible cartridges were problem because of ink drying.

Edited by movilogo on 12/07/2021 at 15:24

Monitored Burglar Alarm Contract Renewal - Engineer Andy

would have expected some systems to be more generic and to be able to interface with smart phones via the internet and an app, so end users like you can monitor them, as long as the phone is on.

Many systems come with a SIM inside which can dial designated phone numbers if intrusion is detected. Of course, you have to make sure there is enough credit in the SIM to be able to dial you.

I'm glad this sort of system is now possible. Sems rather common sense to me, gvien the tech available for smartphones, tablets, laptops, etc.

Rather like computer printer manufacturers who charge (say) £40 for a new printer which comes with short-filled ink cartridges and then charge £25 per replacement ink cartridge,

I had this frustration for years when I used inkjet printers at home. Now moved to laser printer (don't print color stuff at home) and experience is better. In laser toners don't dry and compatible cartridges are lot good value for money. With inkjet, even cheaper compatible cartridges were problem because of ink drying.

Yep, rather like my car (as I haven't been working for a while) where I drive 12 miles every 1-3 weeks (shorter period the colder it gets) to do my grocery shopping to keep the battery topped up, I occasionally run off a print using all the colours (often just a test sheet or cleaner programme page) to keep the ink cartridges/heads from drying out.

The problem I find with using laser printers with toner is that apart from the really high-end commercial stuff, you can (as it used to be the case with home and small commercial inkjet printers) only buy them with one black and one multi-colour toner cartridges, which take up a lot of space in the unit and are very costly. My Canon MFT at least comes with a black + separate C, Y & M cartidges, though they do cost (cheapest) £20 a pop and £65 for the set.

At least with the security systems, from accounts above, they now can be more cheaply run over time due to them not needing to be managed remotely at high cost.

A near neighbour in a house over the road regularly has to switch off their alarm that goes off by mistake. The daft thing is that my area is really low crime for thefts and I doubt if they need it (the previous [original] owners had it installed when they moved in, I was told).