I appreciate your thoughts, and I can certainly see where you're coming from.
For me, the cost of the more traditional services is prohibitive, and especially so in the case of automated calls to the police and fire departments -- the city (at least down here) and the monitoring company begin to levy extra fines in false alarm situations (forgot your access code, burned something in the oven, etc.).
My personal take is that I would rather make the judgement call, myself. I can guarantee there will be more "false alarms" (since my service just listens for a sustained increase in volume and isn't wired to sensors directly), but at least the user can weed them out and not the city. And it's a lot cheaper.
Considering that so much of the technology is still built on landlines and mechanical sensors the home monitoring market is ripe for innovation. Broadband and SMS are the right direction, I believe. But a reduction in service level probably isn't.
Comments
I appreciate your thoughts, and I can certainly see where you're coming from.
For me, the cost of the more traditional services is prohibitive, and especially so in the case of automated calls to the police and fire departments -- the city (at least down here) and the monitoring company begin to levy extra fines in false alarm situations (forgot your access code, burned something in the oven, etc.).
My personal take is that I would rather make the judgement call, myself. I can guarantee there will be more "false alarms" (since my service just listens for a sustained increase in volume and isn't wired to sensors directly), but at least the user can weed them out and not the city. And it's a lot cheaper.
Thanks again for your thoughts!
Considering that so much of the technology is still built on landlines and mechanical sensors the home monitoring market is ripe for innovation. Broadband and SMS are the right direction, I believe. But a reduction in service level probably isn't.