Supercharge your alarm with text alerts

Apr 15, 2010 - Do you want to make sure that your son or daughter is not throwing parties at your home when you’re away? Do you want to know how long your cleaning person was at your house?

If you have an alarm system, you know the basics. It can deter intruders. It can sound an alarm during a fire or break-in. It can contact keyholders or emergency responders moments after an incident. But, did you know that you can use your alarm to give you real-time updates for who is coming and going at your house?

For just about any event you want, ADS can program your alarm system to send you a text message. You get to decide what events will trigger a text message. For example, your system can be programmed to send you a text whenever someone arms or disarms the system. It can send a text when a certain person arms or disarms the alarm. Or, you can just receive messages if there is a trouble or alarm signal. It is all up to you.

We have found one of the most valuable uses of text alerts is for parents who have children who are home alone. Specifically, parents find that text notification when the child arm/disarms the system is very helpful. In essence, you’ll get confirmation that your child has left and returned to the house, which is especially useful during school when your child to leaves and returns from school at a regular time.

Another common reason for getting text alerts is to track who and when someone is coming and going at your house. For example, if you have a cleaning person who comes to your house regularly, then we can program your system to send you texts when the cleaning person’s arm/disarm code is entered. This will tell you that the cleaning person has been at your house and how long they were at your home.

Finally, you can use text service to make sure that unwanted persons are not entering your home. Imagine that you have a son, daughter, or babysitter who is prone to having guests at your home when you’re away. You can require that alarm is required to stay “armed” while your child or babysitter are in the house. With text service, you’ll know if someone disarms the system to let another person inside.

These are some common examples of when text service is useful. You may have your own creative way to use it to address a problem you are having. A phone call to ADS is all it takes to get text service going. It’s a service that people find very useful, but not everybody is aware of!