What are Home Alarm Monitoring Systems?

Home alarm monitoring systems are put in place to monitor a person’s home for alarms. When a person has a home alarm monitoring system, he has more than a burglar alarm that emits a loud noise when his home’s security is breached; he also has a service that monitors his home for signs of trouble. This means a monitoring service is notified through the alarm system any time an alarm sounds in his home. The alarm monitoring service has the responsibility to respond to alarm notifications and call the police or seek other emergency help.

While a person can have a home alarm without having a monitoring system in place, the two often go hand in hand. Home alarm monitoring systems essentially take home security one step further. Individuals who opt for home alarm monitoring systems know they have a bit of backup for seeing to the security of their homes and the safety of their occupants. A home alarm monitoring system can help ensure that help is on the way, even if a resident isn’t at home when the alarm sounds.

A home alarm monitoring service may even send the police or other emergency help when a resident is on the premises but unable to get to the phone. For example, if a person is a victim of a home invasion, a criminal may prevent him from taking the monitoring service’s call. Monitoring services usually attempt to call the resident to ensure that there is no false alarm. If the criminal prevents a resident from answering the phone in such a case, the monitoring service will usually call for emergency help right away. Likewise, an alarm monitoring service may call the fire department if it receives notification of a fire alarm and is unable to get the resident on the phone.

Some home alarm monitoring systems have mechanisms in place to deal with situations in which criminals force residents to turn their alarms off. For example, if an alarm sounds and a criminal forces the resident to enter the code to shut it off, some monitoring systems allow the resident to punch in an emergency code rather than the real passcode. The emergency code would stop the alarm from blaring but would still allow the home alarm system to note the alarm and the entry of the emergency code. In such a case, the monitoring service may call police right away rather than calling for confirmation of the alarm.