Home Security Blog

One of the big gripes people have with the LYNX panels is that the only siren that it works with is the 5800WAVE. The truth is that Honeywell's wireless security system can be made to work with any wired siren. It just takes a little bit more work. We've done our best to make it simple with FAQs, manuals, and even an Alarm Grid kit, but we have been missing the most important, helpful element: videos. The following video can be viewed as a series on YouTube (if you head over there, be sure to subscribe to the Alarm Grid channel), or you can watch it in order right below.

In this first video, we show you the Alarm Grid LYNX-EXT. It's the simplest, cheapest way to get an external sounder to work with your wireless security system without having to run a wire. The LYNX-WEXT works roughly the same way as the one in the video below, however, a wire needs to be run from the relay in the WEXT to the system itself.

Putting everything together in the LYNX-EXT is really simple. Sterling goes through the wiring, and how to connect it to the wireless security system.

Sterling goes in depth about how to choose the wired sirens you would like to use, and how to do a quick power calculation on your system. In this video, we demonstrate the strongest siren we sell, the Amseco 52s, which will make a 120dB fuss if the system is breached.

Sterling gives a quick explanation about how to properly wire the siren and the strobe. Once this is done, all that is left to do is set the house ID codes in the system and the 5800RL.

Setting the House ID Codes on the LYNX Touch Units

All three of the next videos demonstrate how to set the house ID whether your system is an older, discontinued L5100, or the newer L5200 and L7000.

Setting the House ID on the 5800RL

Like most Honeywell sensors, the 5800RL uses dip switches to pick its House ID. It is the same way that the 5800WAVE works. Setting these dip switches will allow the system to communicate with the horn so that the siren can start blaring the second you need it most.

Honeywell's AD12612 is the best selling power supply in any kit. Sterling takes us through how to wire the LYNX-EXT to the power supply and external sounder. 

The Panics!

Both to show it works, as well as allowing anyone who is curious a chance to listen to the panic sounds. Below are videos of Sterling demonstrating both the Police Panic and the Fire Panic.

Our alarm monitoring is not expensive in the slightest. Alarm Grid offers a number of simple plans for your system, that we have done our best to keep very reasonable. We are happy to say that nearly everyone we talk to is amazed to find no-contract monitoring service at the rates we offer, and that our current customers are very happy with their service. That said, we are often asked by more price-conscious consumers why they are better off becoming customers of Alarm Grid than one of those super-cheap central stations. Since we spend so much time explaining anyway, I figured it was about time to do a little write-up on the subject.

Who Does the Monitoring... because Not All Central Stations are Created Equal

One of the dirty little secrets of the home security industry is that the company that actually does the alarm monitoring and alarm dispatching is usually an un-named central station that answers as the company you're paying. Most alarm companies don't even admit that they use a third party for the central station service. Central station monitoring is a commoditized service that companies like Alarm Grid purchase on behalf of their clients. Just like those concerned about price will often try to find the best deal for monitoring, alarm companies do the same. They shop their accounts around so that they can get the cheapest deal on alarm monitoring. Unfortunately, that can result in a under-staffed, under-technologized UL listed central station providing you your monitoring service.

The central station we work with is a company called Criticom. We picked them because they are well-regarded as a central station. For our customers, the average response time over the last 6 months is just over 11 seconds. This kind of response time is incredible, even a little unprecedented. Your accounts are not cheap for us to have monitored. We didn't pick Criticom because of incredible cut-rate pricing. We picked them, over less expensive central stations, because we think they are the best. They have three central stations (something that is not required for a UL listed central station). They have incredible response times, a 30+ year history and they are armed with the best, most modern technology available today. They are always modernizing so that any new technology in the industry is adopted quickly. 

Simply choosing a central station because it's UL listed doesn't cut it anymore. It's important for you to ask your alarm company the detailed questions about who they use for central station service and then to research how that central station may differ from others. Before we selected Criticom to be the official Alarm Grid monitoring partner, we spoke to countless other UL listed centrals. Criticom had the best feature set we could find.

Additionally, Alarm Grid is in control of the phone number that your system uses to communicate with the central station. This is a pretty important fact that most consumers wouldn't even know to ask about. Very simply, it means that if Criticom begins performing poorly (if our customers do not continue to get the same great level of service they've received up to this point) we can simply change which central station we work with.

You Don't Get to Test Your Monitoring Until You Need It

This is a pretty critical point. With cheap alarm monitoring, oftentimes what you're getting is monitoring from a central station that is nothing more than a couple of guys sitting in a cement room, fulfilling the minimal requirements to be a UL listed central station. These alarm companies may say that they can charge less because there is no middleman - they are the ones providing the monitoring. This is often true. However, it's important to realize that there are typically two businesses in the industry: alarm service companies and central station companies. Running a central station competently is not something an alarm service company is necessarily well suited to do.

Alarm companies are generally staffed to the hilt, with installers, technicians and sales people. For companies whose primary business is selling security system service and attempting to get customers to sign up for long, unreadable contracts, running a central station is an afterthought. How can you know that your company will be there when you need them, the one time that you actually get robbed? Well, again, we work with a company that does nothing but central station monitoring. Their job is to be there. We encourage you to test their track record, read as much as you can about them. Criticom's years and years of service are unparalleled. And that level of certainty is what you pay for in an alarm monitoring company.

An Explanation of Alarm Grid's Costs

So given all that, how does Alarm Grid keep our prices so low? The traditional alarm company acquires customers through a number of channels, including offering them free systems in exchange for signing a long-term contract. This free-system scam is one of the most insidious in the industry. Often a company's cost will be around $300, but the monitoring that they sell will end up locking consumers into contracts where they pay for the monitoring, and then pay enough on top of it that they could have purchased a brand new system every single year. We believe in transparency. So, at Alarm Grid, we offer the equipment at as low of a price as we can and only offer alarm monitoring packages that are month-to-month.

Alarm companies often resort to these tactics because they have to pay for the overhead of a bloated installation, sales and tech support team. As a DIY company, we employ only tech support and customer service agents. We are lean, green, and uninhibited by the need to pay a bloated staff. If you've ever had the pleasure of meeting our beautiful live chatters, you'll know that Alarm Grid strives to give you as many communication channels as possible. That said, the content we produce - the FAQs, the videos, our posting of the user manuals, and everything else, is done to make sure that you can do much of what needs to be accomplished on your own. For simple problems, the kind that you might have called an installer to come and fix in the past at a cost of $50 to $100 (like installing a 5811 sensor or changing the master code on a wired Honeywell system), you can now do yourself in a matter of minutes.

As a result of our cost saving measures, we do not need to sacrifice the quality of monitoring by using a cheap central station. So, while we may not have the absolute lowest priced monitoring plans, our rates are anything but cheap and we know that you will be hard pressed to find a company that offers the service on a month-to-month basis at these rates. That said, we will do everything in our power to make sure that we can keep it low cost as possible. Because, while we believe it is important to continue to offer alarm monitoring at a low price, you have our word that we will never sacrifice your safety for our bottom line. If the price of monitoring has to go up someday, we can assure you that the hike will have been very carefully considered and only done if necessary. Such a move would only be done if we had no other choice. And while that may happen some day, we promise that if it does, we will be as transparent about it as we have been with everything.

According to the Detroit Free Press, many of Detroit's cash-strapped fire departments use a Faygo can filled with metallic objects and puts it precariously at the edge of a fax machine (that's right, they get their fire alerts by fax). When a fax comes in, the paper tips over the can, and a nearby firefighter alerts the rest of the station.

We sell some of the best, state of the art residential monitoring equipment you can find. Using an L7000 and a 5808W3 sensor are going to protect your home using the incredibly reliable, wireless technologies that have been perfected by Honeywell. So when we see low-tech stuff like this, it's astounding. That said, we have to commend those Detroit firefighters for making the most of a hard situation.

It just goes to show, just because you may have a state of the art security system and fire detection system. That doesn't mean that your fire department does. 

The L5100 is the security system that changed the industry forever. Honeywell gave things a try with its predecessor, the L5000, but it just wasn't right. While the L5000 may not have hit on all cylinders, the L5100 was a smashing success. A Z-Wave controller, a security system, and a beautiful, simple to use user interface ushered in a new era of home security. Responsive, colorful, and simple to use, the L5100 made home security accessible to the common man. The result of the simple 3-touch auto-enrolling process for zone programming, or simple typing in of a serial number, made it so there were no longer complicated button presses to get in and out of programming.

Moreover, this wireless panel was the first full-scale wireless panel that truly won over the old-timers who resisted the transition from wired to wireless. The modular approach to adding communicators gave consumers choices about what exactly they want their system to do.

As of today, stock across the country has been exhausted of this groundbreaking panel, and we have discontinued its sale in our store. It has been replaced by Honeywell's newer, bigger, better panels the L5200 and the L7000. These two new panels are wonderful replacements for this workhorse, and we're sure they are going to become the industry standard for years to come. While different in some ways, the L5200 and L7000 are wonderful additions to the Honeywell family and welcome replacements for what was once a revolutionary panel.

We were all affected by 9/11. For those in my generation, there is nothing like it that has ever happened. I remember my father telling stories about the Kennedy assassination and how he remembers where he was when he heard the news. Likewise, I remember sitting in period C math class when over the loudspeaker, all the students were asked to come to the gymnasium where the our principal proceeded to tell us what had just happened. I remember it vividly as a confusing day. Planes were grounded, save for the occasional military aircraft patrolling the sky. People were stuck on vacations. No one knew who had done the act or why.

Now, 13 years later, I find myself working in a company that relies on the same first responders who responded on that fateful day to do routine checks on homes, protecting us from unseen dangers. At Alarm Grid, we hope that all of you who are protected by our monitored security systems are always safe and sound. But we can all be incredibly grateful that when we need them the incredible courage exhibited by police and firemen are welcomed.

So while we can all be a little bit sad today, remembering our fallen fellow Americans, don't forget to say thank you to all of the people whom make our lives a little bit better by keeping us safe.

Honeywell has released the newest revisions for the Tuxedo Touch WIFI, and there are some really exciting new additions. The most notable, perhaps, is the much anticipated voice command feature. When announced at ISC, most of us thought that the Tuxedo Touch with Voice control was going to be an altogether new Tuxedo Touch much like the other voice-enabled keypads in the Honeywell wired series like the 6162V. Instead, Honeywell is making the feature available to anyone with a Tuxedo Touch WIFI installed in their home.

For now the feature is pretty limited, but it is neat, nonetheless. Using commands such as "Bedtime," "Evening Time," "Leaving the House," "Returning Home," "Wake Up," and "Cameras," an user can arm the system, control scenes, and summon Zombies....

Ok, maybe not zombies, but the other stuff is all true.

The new revision update has a lot more than just voice capabilities though. Local video recording lets an user record 2 minute videos using the installed SD card. As much video as the card has capacity to store can be put on the system. Perhaps the most value-add feature is the increase in scenes from 10 to 30. Accompanying the increase is the ability to group like-Z-Wave devices, which makes scenes way more powerful and the programming of Z-wave devices much more intuitive and fast (a really good feature if you've ever had to do it.

We are working on some articles on how to install the new update, so check back here in a little while. We will have more information as we get it.

If you know anything about Alarm Grid, you know that every time you call in, our team will pick up the phone and pick up wherever it was that you last left off. We do our best to make sure that you get both your problems solved, but more than that, that we become intimately involved with your troubleshooting needs and the obscurities that come from your particular system setup. We're a DIY company, and we believe very strongly in the possibilities that come about by knowing the people we are supporting.

We actually get a lot of comments on our method. And while we've been as transparent as we can be regarding everything from divulging the name of our central station partner to listing all the SAAS utilities we use, we thought it was a good time to teach you all how we can all be so familiar with your particular accounts (even if you called a year ago, and are asking for help today.

Alarm Grid is built on an open source shopping cart solution called Solidus (formerly Spree). Spree was built using Ruby on Rails. Ruby on Rails was developed many years ago by a programmer named David Heinemeier Hansson who started a company called 37signals in the course of creating their now well-used project management software Basecamp.

Whew!

Why does it matter? Well, in addition to creating Basecamp and the soft spot we have all developed for Ruby on Rails, 37signals also created a wonderful customer relationship manager (CRM) called Highrise. Highrise is a super simple CRM that competes with bigger, more complex platforms. We have been Highrise users since the day we opened our doors, and all of you have been the recipients of the wonderful support that can be largely attributed to how we use Highrise.

We highly recommend the application, and would urge any of you out there with small businesses to use the tool. That said, 37Signals, which has subsequently changed their name to Basecamp, announced a few months back that they were going to sell or spinoff Highrise. And after months and months of waiting on baited breath to find out exactly what was going to happen to our beloved CRM, we have just been given word that Basecamp has decided to spin it off instead of selling it.

So while it's a little unusual, we are all breathing such a sigh of relief we wanted to just write a little post to Highrise, its new CEO - Nathan Kontny, and the rest of the Basecamp team. Thank you for all you've done, and here's to many more years of making customers very very happy!

Hi DIYers, today we're going to tell you about who just got their 1,000th subscriber. We did!

As many of you know, YouTube is one of the most common ways that you have all learned about Alarm Grid. We have put hours and hours into producing wonderful, (boring but...) informative videos all about how to install a security system, program sensors, and even the occasional full panel swap-out.

Our very own Sterling Donnelly has become a little bit of a celebrity around these parts we're proud to say. Every day new users call in, in disbelief that he still answers the phones. It's no wonder considering that just under 300,000 people over the course of the last two years have seen him do all sorts of security system-based things (think of one person you know whose been seen so many times). In a few months, we'll have passed more than 1 million minutes watched on the Alarm Grid YouTube channel - believe it or not. That's 694 days worth of watching which, incidentally, is more days than Sterling has been married.

We can't believe we've hit 1,000 subscribers, and we're baffled by the amount of time that is spent on the channel. So keep on watching, and we'll keep on making the videos. We're diligently working on a studio to make them even better. Once the Alarm Grid lab is complete, you can expect more videos on the regular. So if you haven't subscribed already, head on over to the Alarm Grid YouTube channel and hit do it now!

10 years ago Yelp was founded. One of the earliest players on the Web 2.0 scene, Yelp was a bit of a revolutionary concept. Users would get online and tell other users what they thought of a company. Ten years later, the idea doesn't sound very absurd - it's just sort of something that happens everyday.

Why mention it in a post about Alarm Grid's birthday?

Well, 10 years after Yelp's launch, I think it's hard to disconnect Alarm Grid's business model from the incredible online revolution that Yelp began. Yelp is not our favorite review site. They make it hard for our users to write reviews that show up. If you see our Yelp page, you'll notice that 33 users have had reviews filtered. We have two reviews that have stuck. Not to mention Yelp is regularly criticized for their practice of what appears to be a pay-to-play model. They regularly call businesses asking them to advertise on the site, promising that the advertising will lead to more reviews (which are going to be filtered). The practice has led to lawsuits that Yelp basically always wins. After all, filtering your reviews, then calling you to tell you that paying them money to get more reviews is a good way to get reviews to stick sounds an awful lot like infamous mafia extortion attempts, "I'd hate to see your store burn to the ground. The evidence is on their side.

As the marketer on Alarm Grid's team, I can say with quite a bit of confidence, that while Yelp's reviews are filtered, and Yelp's pitch for advertisers to get on-board sounds extortion-y, their reviews are generally pretty trustworthy. And despite appearances, the accusations about their pay-to-play model are pretty unfounded. I've worked with companies that bought ads and companies that didn't. In both cases, reviews are hard to get to stick.

Yelp's review filter is a mean and ruthless God, albeit a fair one.

But that's not really why I'm writing this. Yelp's business model is their business. The reason I wanted to write about Yelp has more to do with the philosophy of Alarm Grid, and why we owe a lot of who we are these days to what Yelp did 10 years ago. The reason Yelp makes it hard for reviews to be included on pages is because the recognized how important those reviews were as a signal. For years, businesses were putting up fake reviews - a problem that persists to this day for almost every review site. While lots of businesses do their best to cheat the system. We are proud to say that we are able to trace back every single review we have been given to one or another customer of Alarm Grid's. Some of them were people who we helped set up a system, and others were random people who needed help with their system because their current company refused to do it, and who left us a review because they were so blown away with our service and attitude (and even a little impressed with the humble knowledge exhibited by the Alarm Grid staff).

Yelp started long before there were really any credible review sites online. I suppose you had Zagat back in the day. But they were independent. The idea that we could trust people to leave honest feedback, and more than that, that companies could trust in the intellect of their shoppers to sift through both lies and truth and make good purchasing decisions was novel. Nowadays, we take it for granted. A lot of companies still don't quite get it. Just last week the New York Post wrote an article about a New York hotel that charges their wedding guests $500 if someone in their party leaves a bad review. When the internet got wind of the practice, they stormed the bastille and left hundreds and hundreds of 1-star reviews on their Yelp page. It's not entirely fair. Many of these reviewers have never stayed at the hotel or experienced the service, but it speaks to the how sacred the right to review freely is taken by what we might go so far as to call the Yelp generation.

This is something we recognized at Alarm Grid early on. We believe very strongly in allowing the free voice of those whom have experienced our service to be heard loud and clear. Why? Because the entire goal of Alarm Grid was to be helpful and courteous and to help you do what you need to do to get your security system up and running. It's a model that can only exist in a world full of reviewers. First and foremost, we do our best to be and pass on competence. Occasionally, (as I'm sure some of you know) we make a mistake. When we do, we do our best to rectify the mistake and move past it. If you look at our reviews, I think you'll see that they reflect our service-centric corporate attitude. We believe that most of the people who come into contact with us will be so blown away with the level of service they receive, that over the long-term, it will be very difficult to find many people with a bad thing to say about us. We don't promise it won't ever happen - you can't please everybody - but we do try our darndest.

There are a lot of amazing milestones we've reached in the last two years. For one, we have built one of the fastest growing, most watched security system channels on YouTube. While the cynical may look at Justin Bieber's more than 2 million subscribers and laugh at our piddly numbers, we will proudly stand by our 1,000 subscribers. The channel itself has amassed more than 200,000 views since it's inception. More than 12,000 hours of footage have been watched by all of you during that time - that's more than 500 full days worth of time have been spent watching Alarm Grid. What does that mean? If you divide that into 8 hour workdays, more than 1500 days of work have been spent watching Alarm Grid's youtube videos. We count that as a huge success. Those views represent hundreds and thousands of people whose lives we have made better since we started this company. I can't even tell you how amazing that feels for us as a team.

Earlier this year, our Facebook page crossed the 2,000 likes threshold. Again, those aren't Justin Bieber numbers, but that's pretty incredible for something as boring as a security company. We're small, and our users are passionate, and we believe that our user base is the key to our success. As long as all of you are satisfied, we can continue to bring in new customers. More customers means we can grow our staff, more staff here means very simply, you get better service.

We have gone from being completely obscure to one of the most exciting brands in the DIY security industry. We are mentioned all over forums, blogs, and the occasional, surprising internet crevice. Every day, we as a team marvel in awe at this business that you have helped us build. Alarm Grid has become much bigger than any of us that work here, and any of you whom we monitor. In a lot of ways, other home security companies have followed suit - copying us move for move. We have been trendsetters, and we hope that all of you that took the risky plunge by allowing a security company that had been opened for less than 2 years understand how important you are to us.

We're really really proud to be celebrating our second year. Yelp has been building their company for 10 years, we have been building ours for 2. We're incredibly honored by the amazing customers that have given us the chance to serve them. And we're happy to say that we're ready to take on even more in the coming year. So tell your families and friends. Get them on board, let them know who we are. Don't keep us a secret. We believe that being treated well by your alarm company is a human right as important as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And besides, we want to make sure we make it through our terrible twos and right into our third anniversary.

Today we executed step 1 of building our new DIY video lab! We will be adding some heavy duty, locking casters to turn our faux wall into a mobile video lab. You say 'green screen' we say 'wall on wheels.' 

This means more nitty, gritty DIY installation videos using real sheetrock cut-ins. Who knows, we may even break out some cable snaking tricks that will save you time and aggravation. The beauty of the faux wall is that we can offer realistic installations on a true surface! 

As the Alarm Grid DIY community grows we plan to offer simple, professional techniques and solutions for all your alarm system needs. Be sure to check out our Youtube channel for the latest and greatest details on everything Honeywell! 

https://www.youtube.com/user/AlarmGrid