Best House alarm

acassells80

Recently purchased a new house and looking for the best reasonable cost for a monitored alarm system on a 4 bed house in South Dublin? All suggestions or recommendations are welcome.

KoolKid

Are you looking for self monitoring or central station monitoring with a monitoring & maintenance contract paid monthly or annually?
Is the house wired for an alarm or are you looking for wireless?

acassells80

Hi looking to pay monthly for a central station monitoring and I presume wireless is the best?

KoolKid

Wired would be preferable if the wiring is there.
Any PSA licenced company can offer you monitoring and maintenance but shop around and get a few quotes. Make sure you are comparing like with like.
Some of the cheaper ones may only offer on or 2 calls or limit the length of calls etc. In cases like this you may well be charged for excess calls or time if there is a problem with the system.
A proper service & maintenance contract should cover all calls and labour in relation to maintaining the system.
Also look at the type of system you are looking to get installed. Look for perimeter protection covering all accessible windows and doors with shock sensors & contacts to cover opening & forced entry. This system should also have a couple of internal motion sensors as a second line of defence and to verify an alarm activation. Again beware here of the cheaper systems only offering you internal motion sensors (PiRs) . These systems will not activate untill after an intruder has gained entry. A good alarm system should be designed to detect and deter an intruder before they gain entry.
Most systems now offer remote access and notifications via smart phone apps.Most are free to download and use ,but some try to charge you for this.
The brands I would recommend are
Siemens
GSD
and Risco.
With Siemens , if you require wireless sensors you will need to use 3rd party sensors.

acassells80

Thanks this is very helpful. I'm trying to avoid PW as I've been told it's quite expensive. I have been looking into a new type of alarm that uses a private long range digital radio network instead of GSM. Are these worth the extra cost?

KoolKid

You can get GSM with polling every 3 minutes cheaper. This would get you notified after 15 minutes if the polls are missing.

acassells80

I was quoted €899 for this new type of alarm and then €30 monthly which seems quite expensive?

KoolKid

What are you getting for that?

garancafan

KoolKid wrote: »

You can get GSM with polling every 3 minutes cheaper. This would get you notified after 15 minutes if the polls are missing.

Would be grateful for an explanation of the term "polling".

acassells80

Flat €30 monthly monitoring fee (including VAT, irrespective of the number of sensors)
Standard package includes 3 door contacts, 6 wire-free window contacts and fob
Additional sensors, contacts , smoke/CO2 detectors or additional panic buttons can be added
Easy to use control panel.

fred funk }{

Not a bad price for the alarm but expensive for the monitoring.

acassells80

What should I be paying for a good alarm for a 4 bed detached house . House also has sun room with Perspex roof?

fred funk }{

acassells80 wrote: »

What should I be paying for a good alarm for a 4 bed detached house . House also has sun room with Perspex roof?

Impossible to give an accurate price without a site inspection. There's simply too many variables.

KoolKid

garancafan wrote: »

Would be grateful for an explanation of the term "polling".

It basically sends a signal to the station every 3 minutes telling the monitoring station its still there and working ok.

acassells80 wrote: »

Flat €30 monthly monitoring fee (including VAT, irrespective of the number of sensors)

Just monitoring or monitoring & maintenance?
Price should be a lot cheaper if its just for monitoring. Should still be cheaper if its for monitoring & a service contract. Also check if any service contract covers unlimited call out. You should not have to pay if extra calls are required if a fault is not found or diagnosed correctly.
All systems are easy to use....

kub

acassells80 wrote: »

Flat €30 monthly monitoring fee (including VAT, irrespective of the number of sensors)
Standard package includes 3 door contacts, 6 wire-free window contacts and fob
Additional sensors, contacts , smoke/CO2 detectors or additional panic buttons can be added
Easy to use control panel.

No Inertia shock sensors and beams......reading that there is a huge hole in that system, there seems to be no provision for the glass on your windows.
Also no provision for a verified activation for Garda response.

acassells80

Any views on HKC alarms?

KoolKid

Nothing major wrong with the equipment. Out of the systems I listed they were the last entry into the wireless market.
The problem I find is most people now are going for IP panels with apps & remote access. With HKC you are being forced to pay for the apps & pay an annual subscription.
At €60 a year and €7.99 an app its a lot of money you are going to spend over the life of your alarm. Especially when you can get remote access with self monitoring over IP free from most other manufacturers.

batman2000

KoolKid wrote: »

Nothing major wrong with the equipment. Out of the systems I listed they were the last entry into the wireless market.
The problem I find is most people now are going for IP panels with apps & remote access. With HKC you are being forced to pay for the apps & pay an annual subscription.
At €60 a year and €7.99 an app its a lot of money you are going to spend over the life of your alarm. Especially when you can get remote access with self monitoring over IP free from most other manufacturers.

Still weighing up a new system. I was told yesterday (by an installer) that HKC charge a monthly fee for their app, when I questioned this, he said that's 100%. He must have been mixed up with their App and monthly fee eur4.99 (eur60 PA) and their GSM-SC. Am I correct.?

KoolKid

The only way to use their app is via that modem. They either don't have their IP card developed enough to allow a direct IP connection or they don't want to give you direct access to your panel with out charging for the privilege.
Life i said GSD,Siemens & Risco all offer this for free & they all use a cloud connection also.

batman2000

Thanks, thought so. To have this option available in the Siemens 4320 panel is appealing.

KoolKid

Also remember the Siemens panels have a web server so you can always bypass the cloud connection & go directly to your IP or DNS address once you open 7 forward the ports needed. I like the idea of that full control & the comfort of knowing you can never be charged for it.

batman2000

Can you explain the last bit, port forward to directly access your IP.

KoolKid

Your connection to the internet goes via a public IP address. You can browse direct to directly to your SPC alarm panel from any internet connection via a browser or an app from anywhere once your router is configured (some very simple settings ) to allow the connection through.

altor

batman2000 wrote: »

Still weighing up a new system. I was told yesterday (by an installer) that HKC charge a monthly fee for their app, when I questioned this, he said that's 100%. He must have been mixed up with their App and monthly fee eur4.99 (eur60 PA) and their GSM-SC. Am I correct.?

I would say he was confused. Its great value for the GSM-SC.
This unit uses a world sim which is not reliant on your mains being on. The subscription covers the fee for the roaming sim. Can also be set to text you for alarm activation which is good as people travelling outside the country may not have a roaming plan and have data on their phone on. Love the way the APP wakes up with the voice notification of the alarm event also.

KoolKid

If would be great for people to have a choice of a free service or multiple paths instead of having to pay just to use an app. There are plenty of cheaper options if you want text alerts as well. There would also be options for this without paying a monthly or annual subscription.
HKC are also the only ones charging per app you download. All others we use are free.