Recommendations for Security System installation/monitoring?

Another recommendation for Lindon at Crimtech.

I got quotes from the others mentioned in this thread and really wasn’t happy with the salesman. With Lindon you talk straight to the installer about everything. He doesn’t put on any sales pitch at all and will provide exactly what you need/want.

A+ service.

Skidbladnir said :

A_Cog said :

Why bother with a private company?

So, your main risks are loss of power, loss of signal to your own phone & ability to contact secondary phones if yours I’d unavailable , local internet outage, remote polling to ensure you know when any one of the above happens, approriate diagnosis of which has occurred, and appropriate response to the error source, and wether or not your insurer will rate it as an acceptable system.

( Police taking you seriously is a secondary problem to the above, really)

Nup, wrong on all points buddy. Sounds like you’re making up reasons to be a doubter. Sensor has a back-up battery, loss of signal doesn’t matter coz you can have multiple callers (spouses/partners/flatmates), “local Internet outage” wtf? Canberra doesn’t have brown-outs. And yes, cops do respond.

Skidbladnir said :

A_Cog said :

Why bother with a private company?

So, your main risks are loss of power, loss of signal to your own phone & ability to contact secondary phones if yours I’d unavailable , local internet outage, remote polling to ensure you know when any one of the above happens, approriate diagnosis of which has occurred, and appropriate response to the error source, and wether or not your insurer will rate it as an acceptable system.

( Police taking you seriously is a secondary problem
to the above, really)

Also, those pesky large huntsman spiders can play havoc with sensors. Best to get rid of them! Hahaha! 😉

( also, technology has moved on a lot since I wrote the above posts and so have I, but much of it remains solid.)

Apologies in advance for an ignorant question, but why do you need a static ISP (IP address?) for the webcam?

A_Cog said :

Why bother with a private company?

So, your main risks are loss of power, loss of signal to your own phone & ability to contact secondary phones if yours I’d unavailable , local internet outage, remote polling to ensure you know when any one of the above happens, approriate diagnosis of which has occurred, and appropriate response to the error source, and wether or not your insurer will rate it as an acceptable system.

( Police taking you seriously is a secondary problem to the above, really)

Why bother with a private company?
If you have a smartphone, you can:
1. Get your Internet provider to give you a “static ISP” – cost is about $5/month
2. Buy a webcam and hook it up to your phone line – some are movement activated, and some come with two-way comms, so you can hear and speak -cost is around $100
3. Download the app for the camera – cost is free

Then, when some douche burglar breaks into your home, the camera calls your phone, you can see the aforementioned douche, record footage or stills, email them or call the cops and say “hey, little piggies, there is a douche robbing my house and he’s wearing X, Y and Z” and/or you can speak to the douche directly as he robs your house.

Plus, because you can control the camera, you can track him and see what he touches. If he doesn’t have gloves, you can tell the cops EXACTLY what to test for prints (usually they don’t bother coz they can’t be sure). Yay! Scratch one douchebag (until he gets let off for not getting hugged enough as a kid).

Some of Security 1’s “security cameras” do not work in shopping centres either Farout.

My wallet was stolen in a shopping centre, the company had the contract with the shopping centre, they were contacted and their response was that their security footage was unavailable due to their system crashing and wiping the footage.

Yet W’Worths held the best shots of one thief out of the three! 100% more helpful too.

Have noted since that their cameras are limited and facing the wrong way around the shopping centre.

Skidbladnir – that is excellent information. I wish you had been around when we put our system in. (If you have any other information re CCTV systems that you wanted to share that would be great too. There seem to be some increasingly cheap ones on the internet which we are considering.)

We opted for self monitoring to our own and trusted nearby phones. Our biggest issue was we trusted a sole operator newbie in the market who vanished within a few months of our system being installed. We weren’t given the operator code, which was a minor difficulty when we went to change phone numbers.

The only other points I would add are:

1/ give consider serious consideration as to whether you want a remote controller to (de)activate your system. I’m no expert but I suspect that these make systems more vulnerable electronically and, if someone gets hold of your keys, they have your remote to turn the alarm off as well. Many people get remotes so that they can arm the house after they have backed out of the garage but you can set the alarm to delay activation (eg 90 seconds) to give you time to back out and shut the garage door.

2/ consider systems (and multiple controllers) that make it very quick and simple to activate various zones of your house (and from different points). For example, we alarm various areas of our house even when people are at home (depending on who is at home and activities at that time – such as sleeping).

3/ get the installer to show you how to change the battery when it is due (apparently about every seven years). This will save you a call out fee.

and LiamaFrog +1 (I had a good giggle)

Special G said :

Best solution is to have your house alarmed with screamers/sirens both inside and out.

Yep. Ditto. And make sure the screamers inside the premises are really, really loud.