BT alarm system

BT offer a wireless burglar alarm system that will text your mobile if the system is activated. It comes with control panel, one door sensor and two PIR sensors. It is £179.99 including VAT from

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Has anyone installed one of these systems? What did you think of it?

The BT web site also seems to be the cheapest. Argos are £20 more expensive. Presumably BT's site is the cheapest place to buy the kit?

Thanks, Graham

Reply to
Graham Wilson
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It's always best to have a wired burglar alarm system. May take a little more time and trouble to install but much better in the long run. At one time you could get units that phoned a designated number, i.e. Police etc don't know if you can get them now though.

-- troubleinstore

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Reply to
troubleinstore

From experience, it's still a good idea to install a hard wired intruder detection system if at all possible. Wireless systems, although they are now getting slightly better, are still prone to more false alarms from spurious radio emissions.

Just the other day I had to attend a property which was continually being activated by a water board radio-telephone sitting in the van outside the building. And the system wasn't even in set condition because the wifey woman was still at home.

So, if you can, I'd advise installing a hard wired system.

Reply to
BigWallop

Aside form the reported problems associted with wireless systems you have to think *very* seriously about what you are going to do when you get texted that the system has activated.

You are 50 miles away, your significant other *might* be at home, the police will only attend at their leisure if you call them (strict rules apply about them attending alarm activations quickly).

Or if you are close enough to attend yourself, how do you feel about entering your property to disturb someone of unknown nature who may well be quite happy to go through, not round, you to get away?

I guess you could ask a neighbour to look but do you want to be responsible for placing them in such potential danger?

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

Apparently, the police don't like alarm systems that dial them directly. The call has to go through a monitoring station.

The problem with monitoring is that it seems so expensive. £300 - £400 per year.

Graham

Reply to
Graham Wilson

That makes a lot of sense.

If my computer is on and a taxi pulls up in the street, I can hear a "pulse" sound through my PCs speakers when the driver uses his radio to call the "ring back" system to tell the person who has made the booking that the taxi has arrived.

Graham

Reply to
Graham Wilson

I was very positive about getting the wireless system - not so sure now

(:-(

So the answer is get a hard wired system and forget the text option - for once ignorance is bliss.

(:-)

Graham

Reply to
Graham Wilson

I pay about £60/year for monitoring.

What *is* expensive is keyholding and alarm response. That's in the region you mention.

And Redcare is expensive, too.

Reply to
Huge

Who is that with and what do you get for your money?

Thanks, Graham

Reply to
Graham Wilson

The Police will not attend if a regular burglar alarm is going off - they require a secondary indication of attempted break-in such as seeing a broken window etc. The exception to this is a system which has 3rd party monitoring (who then call the police after checking the validity). These systems typically are under a (costly) maintenance contract to ensure that faults are unlikely. Even so, 2 or 3 faults may cause the address to be removed from the list of acceptable addresses for emergency call-outs.

David

Reply to
David Hearn

... in a quarter ...

Reply to
Huge

We had several false alarms at work as a result of a faulty sensor. We were taken off police cover.

In order to go back on police cover we had to have the alarm system upgraded so that it complied with the latest regulations.

Two separate sensors within the building must now be activated before the police are called. If only one sensor is activated then the monitoring company will call a key holder out but not the police.

In addition to a red care line, the new system also has a GSM mobile phone back up connection.

If an engineer at the exchange accidentally disconnects the red care monitoring then the system will send a text message to the monitoring station to confirm whether the alarm has been activated or not.

Although it was not compulsory, we also moved to using key fobs to turn the alarm system on and off. This does away with people forgetting or entering the wrong pin number.

We also had a fog sysem fitted to the building. This is unit that floods the protected office area with fog. The fog is released when the alarm is activated and it will fill the whole room within about 10 seconds to the point where you can hold your hand about six inches from your face and you will not be able to see your hand.

I tripped it by accident. It is bloody frighteneing when it goes off.

The police like it because burglars who enter a building fitted with the device often become trapped and cannot find there way back out.

Graham

Graham

Reply to
Graham Wilson

In article , David Hearn writes

Under the new rules a monitored system has to have a secondary means of detecting an intruder, either a microphone or CCTV, otherwise the police won't turn out.

J.

Reply to
John Rouse

I think the rules vary from police force to police force.

In the case of our county force, the rules talked about a "confirmed" activation. This would be achieved when two or more sensors in the building were tripped.

Graham

Reply to
Graham Wilson

... or 2 PIRs have to have been tripped.

Another example of the State being quite happy to collect the taxes and not being remotely interested in supplying the service they were supposed to have paid for.

Reply to
Huge

And tripped in the right order and timing so a door sensor going off followed closely by the PIR in the room with the door would fit but if the PIR went off before the door nope...

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

I'd rather the Police were out there chasing real criminals not spiders in PIRs...

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

In the case of our local force, the alarm installation engineer said that the system locks out all sensors once the entry door sensor has been tripped. In other words, if someone were to enter the building through the entry / exit door and then wonder into a protected area before the entry timer ran out they would still not set the alarm off.

The entry / exit door can count as one of the two activations needed for the police to be called. However, if the entry / exit door was the first sensor to be activated, the system will only call the police if a second sensor is activated AFTER the entry timer period has expired.

We used to have our entry timer set to 90 seconds. As a result of this change we have had the entry time reduced to 20 seconds.

Graham

Reply to
Graham Wilson

I think the new arrangements make sense. In the case of our building, someone would not get very far without tripping at least two sensors.

If it means that the police don't waste their time chasing false alarm signals then surely this has to be good news.

Graham

Reply to
Graham Wilson

Where I used to live we had a network of numbers to programme in to dial drawn from the Neighbourhood watch scheme. The alarm unit always used to dial two numbers so we programmed our neighbour and our mobile. Never had it used in anger and I can't remember what the units were called but it seemed a good idea at the time.

Tony

Reply to
Tony

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