If you live in Canada and you are looking at purchasing a home security system, I am sure you have heard the AlarmForce commercials. After all, who outside someone living in a cave hasn’t heard the irritating little jingle consisting of nothing more than a phone number?
I will be the first to admit the obvious lure of the soft spoken voice, the false empathy and of course the price…. Who can beat FREE!!!! Don’t let yourself be fooled, when it comes to home security, nothing worth getting will ever be free. This especially holds true for wireless security systems.
Wireless security systems are flawed in their design and manufacture. Mr. Matlin of AlarmForce may tell you his system is superior to hardwired and is the latest and greatest technology available. The reason he can say this with such confidence is he knows he is not marketing to people within the security alarm industry. He is taking full advantage of the naivety of the security alarm consumer and those who do not research a company fully before they purchase a home security alarm system.
Here are some simple facts about Mr. Matlins’ AlarmForce neighbourhood.
1 - The Wireless technology used is similar to that of early model garage door openers. Remember the ones with the little switches inside you could move around and open your neighbours’ garage door?
2- Aside from being bulky and ugly, sensors are put up on your wall with Velcro tape.
The “thundering” 2-way voice comes from a small transistor radio style speaker mounted in the main control unit. This is also the location of the microphone, the dialer and everything which controls the security system.
3 - The main control unit is nothing more than a box about the shape of a loaf of bread. This box is typically set in a convenient place to access. Unfortunately this is also a convenience place for the potential burglar who could easily disable the alarm by stepping on it or putting it in the neighboring microwave oven. (It fits perfectly, I’ve tried.) In fact, many in the security alarm industry refer to this type of alarm as a “toilet alarm”, as it also fits nicely in the toilet bowl.
4 - Line seizure is a term in the industry referring to the ability of the alarm panel to take control of your phone line. This ensures picking up any phone in the house will not interfere with the transmission of the signal to the monitoring station. Since a counter mounted toilet alarm which plugs directly into a regular phone jack does not have line seizure, your home is further at risk.
5 - The monitoring contract. Oh ya, Joel Matlen of AlarmForce never mentioned the contract in his ad. Yes this is typically seven years. Seven years aside, the toilet alarm being sold here is not usable by any other alarm company, therefore you will never be able to cancel with Joel and switch to another company unless you switch out all your equipment. Therefore, Joel is really not giving you anything for free, his little box is a disposable technology, similar to a cell phone which will be out of date and non-functional in a couple of years.
I sincerely hope you found this information helpful. All the information contained within this article comes from industry experience and personal observation. I am by no means stating Joel Matlin or Alarmforce are lying to the consumer, I am simply pointing out some weaknesses in the system. Yes, I am in the industry but I will not mention my company name because that would make this nothing more than a marketing piece for my company. I do not wish to diminish the seriousness of this article just to boost my credibility in the industry at the cost of another. My sole purpose with this blog is to educate potential consumers on the predators of the security alarm industry. To be quite honest, my market is local and I have plenty of happy customers to keep me busy.
I will leave you with this one last though.
Hardwire security systems will ALWAYS be superior to wireless. Wireless security systems are flawed in their design and the failure rate is higher than that of hardwired security systems.
Good Luck in the installation of your home or business security alarm system.
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I had an alarmforce alarm system and was broken into. I came home and found the robber had broken my alarmforce box and gone to the toilet on it. My house was destroyed and nobody was called. I am so glad the burglar was out of the house when I got home. I could have been killed and nobody would have known.
ReplyDeleteI wish I knew about all this information before I signed up for alarmforce. Now they want to keep me locked into the contract and charge me for the broken equipment.