Better Connections

Many opportunities have yet to be realized

• By Mike Zydor
• Jan 04, 2016

The life safety industry, comprised primarily of burglary, fire and medical alert systems, has seen an accelerated evolution in monitoring service offerings over the past decade. This evolution is comprised of numerous components, stemming from drastic enhancements in technology coupled with rapid demographic shifts. The focus on smart-home technologies and the desire to be “connected” that has pervaded the economy, and has helped drive this innovation in monitoring services.

Plain old telephone service (POTS) and traditional radio networks, the backbones and primary transmission technologies up until the last decade, have taken a back seat to GSM, CDMA and IP communication. This has forever changed the landscape of the industry and opened up new opportunities, many of which have yet to be realized.

Data that previously could not be passed at a cost effective price point or was severely hampered by technological limitations, is now readily available in standard packages for the spectrum of alarm professionals, both big and small, residentially or commercially focused, to resell to the market.

OUT OF THE POTS

Monitoring services for decades offered a limited suite of options centered around basic alarm monitoring. Basic services included POTS, a handful of alarm radio networks as a secondary option to telephone line transmission, periodic test timers and opening and closing services geared to the commercial and fire markets.

Cellular services, originally only used for backup purposes, are rapidly becoming the accepted infrastructure standard. Regardless of the portion of the industry served, dealers are able to select from a multitude of cellular manufacturers that major monitoring centers are able to accommodate signal traffic from. Cellular service has also opened a host of network supervision levels based on the installation requirements. This supervision ranges on the low end from monthly and daily on standard residential systems to the high end of five minute supervision on NFPA 72 code driven fire systems.

As part of the shift in telecommunications over the past decade, IP is beginning to play an increased role as both the sole and secondary paths of signaling. Like cellular, all of the major equipment providers offer this as part of their offering suite. This shift in infrastructure has paved the way for the explosion of interactive services. Available from equipment manufacturers and a number of stand-alone software development companies, proprietary platforms and apps have been developed to meet the expanding consumer thirst for home control and connectivity. Once described as fringe offerings, interactive services are now often the salesperson’s introduction to the full capabilities of a security system.

From the perspective of the monitoring center, those services offered for alarm monitoring and those offered for dealer support have become irrevocably intertwined. These added services, offered directly through the monitoring center, include the ability to remote arm and disarm the alarm system along with receiving unlimited zone notifications on all system events.

IN CONTROL

Dealers can set up their customers for automatic services to control their Wi-Fi or cellular enabled thermostats, lights and locks. Additional services include weather data, advertising services and GPS location tracking. With this enhanced set of offerings available to the dealer, the sale is no longer about security and has transitioned to meeting the customers’ lifestyle needs. This, of course, includes protecting both assets and life, while at the same time increasing the longevity of the system because it addresses numerous wants.

In the effort to reduce attrition, or what is often referred to as increasing the “stickiness” of a customer, one of the best ancillary monitoring tools is an end user focused app. Daniel Oppenheim, vice president of Affiliated Monitoring, has been quoted on a number of occasions with the message of “Apps in the hands of the customer changes the expectation of an alarm system. Alarm monitoring service is an intangible because you cannot see it or touch it.

The app makes monitoring a real product that customers will continue to pay for.” Apps can be individually skinned for each dealer to keep their name in front of their customer along with their unique contact information. The customer has a host of options at their disposal including the ability to view all of the accounts that are assigned to them, place systems on and off test and review recent alarm activity, zones with descriptions and the designated contact list individuals.

Not only does the power of apps reside in the customers’ hands, dealers also have a number of these for use by management, office, sales and technical staff. Purposely more robust than end user apps, dealer focused applications give tremendous and invaluable insight and on demand tools for effectively managing an alarm business.

MANAGE THE DATABASE

In addition to the functionality afforded the customer, dealers have the ability manage their entire account database, view live signal activity streams during the account activation and testing process and make instantly accepted changes to their account data. Apps are typically made available for both the iOS and Android platforms and often include different levels of access and capability based on the day to day responsibilities of each user.

One of the fast growing segments of monitoring services that has grown the capacity of the life safety professional to add RMR is personal emergency reporting systems (PERS). PERS can, for the sake of simplicity, be broken down into two categories. The first is the traditional in—home offering that utilizes a standard POTS line or GSM / CDMA for alarm transmission. The second is mobile PERS, more commonly referred to as mPERS, which offers the user increased mobility as they do not need to remain within a specified distance of a base station, as is the case with the traditional in—home systems. Mobile PERS devices often include GPS location tracking and online portals for loved ones to see the activity of the user. The add-on service that is most often used for either type of PERS device is fall detection. To provide the level of service required for PERS, due in large measure to the fact that they can be more active compared to other life safety systems, monitoring centers that specialize in PERS monitoring often have distinct operational and monitoring center teams geared towards this segment of the security marketplace.

ON THE MOVE

Gaining substantial traction in the past few years, video verification services also open a new stream of recurring revenue to the dealer. Previously hindered by proprietary equipment limitations, the integration of numerous software based video, along with DVR, NVR and IP camera manufacturer product lines, into a single video monitoring platform has drastically changed this landscape.

Indoor and outdoor event triggered video along with non–alarm alerts give dealers and their customers an abundance of options when traditional verification is not a solution. Video clips can be sent through dealer branded apps to the customer for informational and dispatch related needs. All of the major equipment manufacturers have added video services to their lineups greatly expanding the dealer base that can offer this. Monitoring centers, such as Affiliated Monitoring, with a single integrated platform have seen great strides in the adoption of video services and verification.

The explosion of new monitoring services within the past decade has created opportunities for alarm professionals to expand their portfolios and grow their RMR stream. The line between monitoring, dealer and end user services is being blurred, with the increased need for tighter integration of all capabilities and functionality. It is a very exciting time to be on both the alarm dealer side and alarm monitoring side with the relationship day by day becoming more of a true partnership.

This article originally appeared in the January 2016 issue of Security Today.