House alarms

ger_dublin

Just looking for some advice.

We are hopefully moving into our new home next month and wanted to get peoples opinions on their experiences with house alarms.

Monitored or standard?

Thanks

Gumbo

I went standard.
Monitored is a good set up once you don’t mind the monthly fees.

Have you thought about cctv also? Seems to be quite common nowadays.

ger_dublin

I was at the RDS today for the Ideal home and there were a few different companies offering monitored systems and yeah you could add a camera for an additional fee.

monthly fee was 30e and if you added a camera its 35e a month.

the contract is 3 years so that's why I am taking the night to decide and get a few opinions

punisher5112

ger_dublin wrote: »

I was at the RDS today for the Ideal home and there were a few different companies offering monitored systems and yeah you could add a camera for an additional fee.

monthly fee was 30e and if you added a camera its 35e a month.

the contract is 3 years so that's why I am taking the night to decide and get a few opinions

Be careful of phonewatch as they use a system where it only alerts to intruder when they have already got in.

hawkelady

Go standard and get to know your new neighbours. Good neighbours are better than any alarm when you're away or out !

punisher5112

Get one with ability to text/ring key holders to the property.

the_syco

Phone watch isn't owned by Eircom anymore. I remember my father dropping it a year or so later as the support wasn't great.

punisher5112 wrote: »

Be careful of phonewatch as they use a system where it only alerts to intruder when they have already got in.

Another thing is that if the Phonewatch system is jammed, it'll never call out. So if someone breaks in, and stops it from ringing out via phoneline or GSM no alarm gets sent.

Other systems will call you (and/or other keyholders) for a codeword and then the police if the system goes offline, or the alarm goes off.

punisher5112

I never said it was eircok now or eir as it changed to.

the_syco

punisher5112 wrote: »

I never said it was eircok now or eir as it changed to.

Sorry, my bad. Put your quote in the wrong place in my post.

Thestones

We went with a monitored alarm simply because the non monitored ones were so expensive, all the companies seem to be pushing them now. We went with Phonelink in the end, we had a budget and after lots of research this company seemed to offer best value, it's a hkc alarm which is a very reputable brand.

Gumbo

Thestones wrote: »

We went with a monitored alarm simply because the non monitored ones were so expensive, all the companies seem to be pushing them now. We went with Phonelink in the end, we had a budget and after lots of research this company seemed to offer best value, it's a hkc alarm which is a very reputable brand.

I’ve HKC also. My brother works for a large American Alarm firm so he does all my stuff. They have a Text dialer add on and you can remotely turn the alarm on/off.

The price of the products has risen sharply over the last few years also.

Thestones

kceire wrote: »

I’ve HKC also. My brother works for a large American Alarm firm so he does all my stuff. They have a Text dialer add on and you can remotely turn the alarm on/off.

The price of the products has risen sharply over the last few years also.

Yeah I have the hkc app which allows you to remotely arm or disarm the alarm, and tells you if your alarm has gone off which is a great add on on top of the monitoring.

amtc

My parents just cancelled monitoring with adt. 50 euro a month and the one time it was set off no.one called.

Fanny Wank

Ours can be set remotely using an app. We get text notifications if it's triggered

ger_dublin

Fanny **** wrote: »

Ours can be set remotely using an app. We get text notifications if it's triggered

What company did you use?

Gumbo

ger_dublin wrote: »

What company did you use?

It’s built into the HKC stuff.
You add the gsm module and put a SIM card in and just keep it topped up by €6 every 6 months.

Lantus

Is anyone aware of any statistics that supports houses alarms actually reducing the risk of been burgled? Especially the monitored alarms that require expensive subscriptions.

SteM

Lantus wrote: »

Is anyone aware of any statistics that supports houses alarms actually reducing the risk of been burgled? Especially the monitored alarms that require expensive subscriptions.

How could you produce that statistic? Poll burglars and ask them if they see a phonewatch box on the wall they'd be less likely to break into a house?

Juwwi

Roughly how much are the alarm systems for self monitoring with your phone
and also how much for the monitored alarms through a company ?
l wouldn't be going with phonewatch .
For a 3 bed house

Also house will be getting new windows installed are all alarms nowadays wireless just wondering if l should be contacting a company soon or wait until all work is done .

L1011

Lantus wrote: »

Is anyone aware of any statistics that supports houses alarms actually reducing the risk of been burgled? Especially the monitored alarms that require expensive subscriptions.

59 houses on my road, three broken in to in the last 18 months. 2 without alarms and one where it was off with the control panel visible through the door

Those 2 without alarms were probably the only two - Maynooth has a reputation for burglaries

Thestones

robbie1977 wrote: »

Roughly how much are the alarm systems for self monitoring with your phone
and also how much for the monitored alarms through a company ?
l wouldn't be going with phonewatch .
For a 3 bed house

Also house will be getting new windows installed are all alarms nowadays wireless just wondering if l should be contacting a company soon or wait until all work is done .

Wireless but they still have to put points on the windows so I'd wait til you have the new windows in. The cheapest non monitored I found was about 800, I paid 300ish plus 25 a month for 3 years for monitoring. Phonelink(totally separate to Phonewatch) is who I used and I think they are really good.

CountingCrows

What most people don't realise is that a lot of the monitored alarms are tied to their supplier, e.g phonewatch. So at the end of your contract you're forced to renew or your alarm is useless. You pay less upfront but way more in the long run.

Fanny Wank

ger_dublin wrote: »

What company did you use?

It's a HKC alarm. Fitted by a company called Lara

Blacktie.

kceire wrote:

It’s built into the HKC stuff. You add the gsm module and put a SIM card in and just keep it topped up by €6 every 6 months.

Where did you find this? I have the same system getting installed and it's €5 per month.

Paulw

the_syco wrote: »

Another thing is that if the Phonewatch system is jammed, it'll never call out. So if someone breaks in, and stops it from ringing out via phoneline or GSM no alarm gets sent.

Isn't that the same for every single alarm out there? :eek: Cut a phone line or use a GSM blocker, and no alarm system will be able to monitor it.

I've a PhoneWatch system for over 10 years now. Fully reliable. We've had 4 activations in those years - 2 around Halloween, so fireworks, etc, set them off, one where a keyholder entered the house but forgot the disarm code, and one we couldn't explain (window sensor).

Many PhoneWatch alarms are HKC systems, and many others are ITI. All depends on the year, make/model.

So, I'm certainly happy with their response and the level of cover.

Diemos

SteM wrote: »

How could you produce that statistic? Poll burglars and ask them if they see a phonewatch box on the wall they'd be less likely to break into a house?

Ask your insurance company, they have all thse kind of stats.

Lantus

SteM wrote:

How could you produce that statistic? Poll burglars and ask them if they see a phonewatch box on the wall they'd be less likely to break into a house?

Maybe the manufacturers of these expensive products could verify what they sell? Otherwise we could run the risk of all getting alarms based on anecdotal evidence.

I did once ask eircom years ago how many burglaries their monitored system has prevented or how many arrests it had led to. A blank look was returned. Seemed obvious to ask to me but clearly those questions are not welcome.

superd1978

Thestones wrote: »

We went with a monitored alarm simply because the non monitored ones were so expensive, all the companies seem to be pushing them now. We went with Phonelink in the end, we had a budget and after lots of research this company seemed to offer best value, it's a hkc alarm which is a very reputable brand.

Hi there,

How did you find these phonelink guys? Im looking to have monitored alarm system and phonelink seem very competitive.

Thanks in advance.

D

Thestones

superd1978 wrote: »

Hi there,

How did you find these phonelink guys? Im looking to have monitored alarm system and phonelink seem very competitive.

Thanks in advance.

D

Great to be honest, no issues. We set off the alarm a few times by mistake (our fault) and they always ring straight away so the monitoring deffo works! Also because it's a hkc alarm you can download the hkc app and you can be alerted if for example your on holiday you will be alerted by app if it goes off. We had someone minding our house when we were away last year and the app lets you look at the log so you can see dates and times when alarm was disarmed, set etc so I could see how long the person spent in the house each day( not that I didn't trust them!) but just letting you know what you can do with it.

superd1978

Thestones wrote: »

Great to be honest, no issues. We set off the alarm a few times by mistake (our fault) and they always ring straight away so the monitoring deffo works! Also because it's a hkc alarm you can download the hkc app and you can be alerted if for example your on holiday you will be alerted by app if it goes off. We had someone minding our house when we were away last year and the app lets you look at the log so you can see dates and times when alarm was disarmed, set etc so I could see how long the person spent in the house each day( not that I didn't trust them!) but just letting you know what you can do with it.

Thanks so much mate. Valuable advice. i will probably go with these guys now

L1011

Lantus wrote: »

I did once ask eircom years ago how many burglaries their monitored system has prevented or how many arrests it had led to. A blank look was returned. Seemed obvious to ask to me but clearly those questions are not welcome.

How, precisely, do you think you could get a figure for that? Do they leave a card saying "sorry you had an alarm, we'll try burgle you another time" like a missed delivery?

How many burglaries had happened to alarmed houses (with the alarm on) would be a valid question. Asking for clearly impossible figures isn't.

They were probably trying to figure out how to say "that isn't even possible" politely.