How to Prevent False Alarms

One of the biggest prob­lems with con­ven­tion­al alarm sys­tems is the risk of false alarms. There are sev­er­al com­mon caus­es of false alarms, depend­ing on the sys­tem. Often, they’re due to motion sen­sors detect­ing move­ment from com­plete­ly ordi­nary sources, such as a pet in the home or even dust. Or, the false alarms can be caused by faulty door or win­dow con­tacts, which cause the alarm to go off even if no door or win­dow has been opened.

Final­ly, even home­own­ers can trip their alarms by fail­ing to enter secu­ri­ty codes cor­rect­ly or for­get­ting to inform fam­i­ly mem­bers and guests about the notice when they enter the home.

False alarms are more than just a nui­sance. In Toron­to and oth­er cities, false alarms are so ram­pant that police are forced to pri­or­i­tize alarms that are ver­i­fied as legit­i­mate. That means sys­tems with­out ver­i­fi­ca­tion don’t get Pri­or­i­ty Response, result­ing in a slow­er response. And if it turns out that your alarm was an acci­dent, you could be fined too.

For­tu­nate­ly, you can take some easy steps to reduce false alarms and ensure you get the fastest response pos­si­ble.

Consider video alarm verification.

An ALARM‑i video ver­i­fi­ca­tion sys­tem offers an extra lay­er of pro­tec­tion to ensure that actu­al dis­tur­bances cause alarm sig­nals. When your alarm goes off (whether by a motion detec­tor, door con­tact, etc.), the sys­tem sends video clips of the event to our mon­i­tor­ing sta­tion. This allows our mon­i­tor­ing sta­tion oper­a­tors to inde­pen­dent­ly eval­u­ate the video before dis­patch­ing police.

As the home­own­er, you, too, receive video clips of the event so that you can direct the mon­i­tor­ing sta­tion whether to dis­patch author­i­ties or not.

Make sure your alarm is monitored.

Even if you do not use video ver­i­fi­ca­tion, a pro­fes­sion­al mon­i­tor­ing sta­tion should still mon­i­tor your secu­ri­ty sys­tem.

A mon­i­tored alarm sys­tem ensures you’ll get the help you need when your alarm is trig­gered – which is espe­cial­ly crit­i­cal if you’re away from home or unable to call for help. Addi­tion­al­ly, the mon­i­tor­ing sta­tion can reduce the risk of false alarms by attempt­ing to con­tact the home­own­er before dis­patch­ing author­i­ties.

Assess your security system settings & installation.

If your alarm con­stant­ly goes off for no rea­son, you’ll want to assess the cause.

Is the door con­tact ade­quate­ly installed? Ensure the com­mu­ni­ca­tion makes a good con­nec­tion when the door is closed. Oth­er­wise, the false alarms will only con­tin­ue.

Are your motion sen­sors pick­ing up ordi­nary move­ment inside your home? Some sys­tems allow you to con­fig­ure dif­fer­ent motion thresh­olds so that things like dust don’t set off the alarm. Some sys­tems also have intel­li­gent, pet-friend­ly motion detec­tion, which can dif­fer­en­ti­ate the sign of a bur­glar from your dog.

Train those with access to the system.

If some­one else will be using the secu­ri­ty sys­tem, whether a fam­i­ly mem­ber, babysit­ter, guest or oth­ers, they must be ade­quate­ly trained on how to use it. A lack of train­ing will sig­nif­i­cant­ly increase the risk of the guest mak­ing an error. This results in a false alarm.

Take a closer look at ALARM‑i.

Learn more about pro­tect­ing your home or busi­ness with an ALARM‑i video alarm ver­i­fi­ca­tion sys­tem. For more infor­ma­tion, call 1–844-416‑7587 or con­tact us online.