pfitzsim

Is anyone doing self monitoring on their home security systems in lieu of paying monthly fees to have it 'monitored'? Here are my thoughts: In 10 years of having an alarm we have had one false alarm (in the middle of the night of course) which only served to wake up those people on our call list and in general an all around nuisance. I personally don't see much (if any) value in having it monitored - by the time the security company calls the 4 or 5 people on the list and then calls the police, even if someone did break in, chances are they would be long gone. We also have some exterior cameras so if nothing else we can confirm that someone broke in by watching them on the camera - the end result being the same for the most part. Ar $30 a month it won't accelerate my retirement but just one of those annoying expenses that I'm not sure I need to continue with in perpetuity.

Thanks.

theiceman

i have my own camaras ( 4 ) that feed a secure DVR with a 7 day rollover .
Really just need it for insurance claims....
the best part is i can see people walking by from my office at home.. when someone stops on my lawn with their dog i hit the garage door opener and they quickly pull on the dog and move on.. worth it just for that

jumper5836

I got rid of monitoring expense 2 years ago. I have alro cameras it comes with a free plan that keeps 1 week in cloud, also can send email, text your phone when camera is activated by motion or sound.

Imo000

Brilliant!

Adamant1971

I'm ditching our monitoring as well. I just installed nest camera's outside of the house and one inside. And using Nest Aware.

pfitzsim

Better late than never - calling the alarm company this aft. to ditch the monthlies. I'm sure my wife can re-purpose the $30 a month. I'm also running the Arlo's (Pro 2) which have been great, other than the odd trip up a ladder to re charge them.

Turbodan

couple of points here:
if you want monitoring go with TMC the monitoring centre for $10/month . most of the other companies that charge more subcontract it to them anyways.
be aware wifi cameras can be defeated by blocking the wifi. advanced crooks use this.
the cameras are mostly made in China and probably have hidden firmware to send images back to homeland, be careful with indoors cameras especially.
one of the bigger wifi camera companies posts losses each year and is controlled by the government.
probably not big concerns for most of us here.
Iceman: maybe you can wire the camera to automatically open the garage when a dog walks by
my biggest issue with self-monitoring is when you are out of town or on a plane.
Did you guys see the documentary on Aaron Hernandez on Net Flix? He kills his girlfriend's sister's boyfriend and then goes home and walks around his house waving his gun capturing it on his dvr for the police to have hard evidence against him. Don't do that.

jumper5836

Good point, made me do some research. While a jamming device would have to be quite expensive to find and very illegal. It would have to broadcast in many frequencies and they would have to know what frequency your using. Not impossible for say the FBI but not really an easy attainable tool a common person would have. I guess though they can send deauth packets over wifi to knock off devices on wifi and prevent them from getting back on. I will now look into adding a couple ethernet wired cameras as backup and also get a Fingbox to detect and alert for deauth and jamming attempts

steam_mill

When we purchased our home in 2002, it came with a monitored alarm. Within a month, the dog learned to bark when he heard the alarm beep. It would beep anytime the front, side, garage or garage man door were opened. I was having none of that. Ripped the control panels out of the wall and disconnected the wires. Cancelled the monitoring $20/month at the time).

We spend about 100 nights at the cottage. I couldn't get my head around being at the cottage and having the alarm company interrupt and ruin my time at the cottage. If something were to happen, I will deal with it when I return home.

In order to protect my home and assets, I have done 2 things:

1. Validate that your insurance meets your needs. Don't cheap out. Make sure you have protected yourself against a loss or accept the risk of the loss. My regular insurance only covers up to $1000 in jewelry. Wife's engagement ring is covered separately. I've chosen not to cover my watch. I'll just incur a loss.

2. Get good landscape lighting. Makes your house look fabulous at night. Also deters criminals. Why go to the lit up house when the dark one probably has good stuff too.

There's a bunch of things that I also do that are easy:

1. If you have workers, delivery people come to your house, don't leave high end possessions out for people to see. If you are having a mattress delivered, put your jewelry away. I used to work for a police force. This was one of the things people just didn't realize. It would be the delivery people doing theft, they would just get a kickback.

2. Park your car(s) in the garage. Your car is worth more than the 30 year old couch that you may need one day. I have a single car garage. I put a lift in, Porsche on top, Jeep on the bottom (Wife does not drive).

Turbodan

not sure if this really works or not. I have heard of break ins where the cameras got nothing as wifi was blocked.

jumper5836

Ya that works as a deauth attack, all the devices on your wifi network will get booted off and try to reconnect again and again to the router until the attack is stopped. Fingbox can detect this and alert you if your being hacked. I am sure they will come up with a fix for it but until then having a wired network camera as precaution would help in case the others were down. I wish I knew about it earlier and would have gone with wired right off the bat the arlo q is network wired and powered over network cable (POE).

BIG smoke

I have kept my monitored alarm. But it is just monitoring. No big dogs. No Xcop with a gun. But its cheap. Like 200 ish/year?
My insurance company gives me a 5% credit, so that pays for it.
I want smoke and 02 monitoring. Like STEAM MILL, I'm at the cottage a lot too,.break in, don't make a mess, I'll deal with it when I get back. Don't phone me and wake me up at 2am to tell me there is a power outage.
I also have electronic water shut off. I hit the alarm, click the house is not pressurized.
I also have four water pads in the house. if they get wet? Click water off. two in the kitchen, fridge, dishwasher, and two in the basement, water heater and under the water meter.
House insurance went crazy this year (like every year) upped my deductible a lot.
The insurance company has been very generous with their discount for water shut off? https://www.grainger.ca/en/product/p...PC:+Google+PPC

SToronto

CPTED

steam_mill

First world problem....

I have irrigation sprinklers so I didn't go down the water shut-off. What a great idea the shutoffs are. I had a valve go bad at the cottage on the sprinklers there and it ran for at least 3 days....

steam_mill

First world problem....

I have irrigation sprinklers so I didn't go down the water shut-off route. What a great idea the shutoffs are. I had a valve go bad at the cottage on the sprinklers there and it ran for at least 3 days....