A.P.I. Alarm
If you are canadian and are interested in getting an alarm, go with a.p.i alarm. alarm force uses shitty equipment and its ugly too…api offers everything that alarm force does except they use trusted equipment – DSC is what i have. alarm force dont have line seizure either which means that if the phone line is off the hook, their monitoring station wont get a signal.
Im pretty sure a.p.i is the largest canadian owned monitoring station and i have been more than happy to be with them. clean work and expert service. they are ulc listed as well. alarm force doesnt even have their own monitoring station…its cheap equipment, thats why they can offer you $25/month and free install…you get what you pay for…pay a little more get a lot more…adt, chubb, and a.p.i is what i recommend…definitely NO alarm force. but again if you are canadian, stay canadian…obama says dont buy canadian, so why should we buy american…do what you want but its better to have peace of mind than uncertainty that comes with alarm force…two way voice is bs anyways…it only works by the key pad…what if your not there…a.pi. adt or chubb
- J
Another Alarm Company
Alarm Force customer for 7 years now. ADT for 3 years prior, Brinks 2 years before that, and Monotronics 1 year before that. Let me just say that these are some nice fish stories.
The battery in the main box is a backup battery which is used when your power is out. Eventually with power outages, surges or any flickers in your electricity it will drain just like any other backup battery. $100 charge, that’s a big fish. Mine cost $20.24 after tax. That was 4 years after having the system. I was told about the batteries in the sensors prior to installation. They recommend changing them once a year. How hard is that. Yes if you can’t change your own batteries they are going to charge you. The cost of the batteries is a little higher than retail. That’s the point, they can’t do it at retail or the poor guy who is doing it isn’t getting paid then. Go with ADT and get a wired system. No battery changes, but heaven forbid you need service there. ADT $35 an hour and $20 every 15 mins. after. I would much rather pay a guy $25-$30 to change the batteries that I am just too damn lazy to do myself.
As far as the two way. It’s not crystal clear, however I am not making my phone calls from the box. The point is to let who ever is in your home know, we know your there and the police are on the way. It is not a recorded voice, unless the 15 times I have accidentally set mine off in the past 7 years has just happened to be a different recorded voice each time that happened to sound just like the operator I was speaking to. Yeah if the intruder is quiet they won’t hear them, but guess what moron, if they don’t hear YOU it’s obviously not you in the house.
I won’t even mention the 4 times I have been broken into. The first I had ADT. They didn’t even know anything happened and that was that. The past 3 times over 7 years, yeah that’s a lot and apparenlty people want my stuff. Guess what, 1 break in with ADT cost me over $6000 in loss and damages, they were there a while while I was on vacation. Not to mention the over $350 in service charges from ADT to check and fix my system which didn’t work. 3 Break ins with Alarm Force have cost me $500 total and that was to fix a broken window on #1 Broken Sliding door on #2 and a door frame on #3. Hmmmm who’s the winner.
Go with another alarm company and see how quickly the awww of the bells and whistles wears off. I was there. The grass is always greener on the other side. You people are all stupid and are the same people who would sue McDonalds when you spill your hot coffee on yourself. Does the cup really need to say HOT…..It’s F’in coffee.
ADT not Greatest
ADT Isn’t the Greatest Solution either. They are just as bad when it comes to scamming the consumer… They just do it on a larger scale.
As far as Dialer tests go, they are useless unless they are done daily. With how overleaded the receiver lines at ADT are, they generally ignore 1 fail to test, sometimes even 2. In this scenario, you will not find out about a buggered panel for up to 3 months. Yes, some panels will indicate a failure to communicate trouble, however ADT disables that on most of their panels because they do not want extra service calls.
In addition, ADT has a 30 to 45 second Abort Delay STANDARD. What this means is if a crackhead breaks into your home, they have the initial 30 seconds to do whatever. Once the alarm starts to ring, they have up to an additional 40 seconds to find your panel and destroy it. This is not difficult as most ADT Systems are wireless and the whole alarm is on the keypad, or the panel is right next to the siren…. Not hard to find that with the siren ringing and the panel doing squat for 40 seconds.
That is over 1 minute of useless alarm people. Think about it.
Marketing
As far as I am concern the man is smart enough to capture the market and the potential clients by appearing on Radio and TV’s and I think it is sad that ADT with 100 years of service do not learn from this guy which I agree. If this guy pump so much cash to his marketing why not ADT or Voxcom (Reliance Protectron since 2008). As you guys all know Bell Canada announced recently (last week) that they are getting in to Home Security. Telus did last year in B.C. with their HomeSitter package. They are few other companies that are getting in this market and they are making it better. There is another company that offers full Video solution they call it GBSdvr.com.
- JD
Nomore Alarm Force
NOT Alarm Force anymore.
We have had Alarm Force for 10 years and now we are going away from it due to their one-man service. “Free”is good until you have a problem. their system shorted the phone line ( relay locked open probably) and cooked the high speed modem ($79.95 plus tax) but the fellow refused to admit any problem, and insulted my friend the phone line fellow. then he said we should have been running a full test of the system every month. then he suggested over the phone a “hard reset” of the system. I wanted another unit; he didn’t want to do that and said again that “you can never be too sure with the phone system”
I’m going local with the ADT all in one price, and they have a line check they do every month for problems. AND no extra charges for battery service.
Alarm Force, the main unit, which they own, has to have the battery replaced $100 plus sooner or later, 3 or 4 years max.
If we were broken into would they say the system was not at fault because we didn’t test it every month?
There are problems getting calls back within 2 days, and I heard it cost one older lady $200 to have him come and check and replace her batteries throughout the house.
Certainly something similar I know of happened to my folks, $100 plus to check the batteries.
I’m not happy with service, a one man show.
Me? I’m an Electro-mechanical research gadget builder and know a little bit about this over the last 30 years, so to hear it passed off on the phone company again when I was there with the meter in my hand- well that’s just crap.
Free Installation
Be careful of the adt free installation and holiday package u still need a adt installer in your house before any free system or installation begins. your looking at plenty of extras that dont come with the free system and install. Alarm Force one has no hidden fees. alarm force one(24.99)adt(30.00)plus 100.99 registration fee, adt may be better but alarm force one is alot cheaper.
Phone Line
I used ADT at my office, my phone line was cut and they didnt know about it for 1 week. I even had to tell them about it and they said that they see a trouble indicator but they do nothing about those. at least Alarm Force answers as soon as a phone line is cut. and try to get a price from adt over the phone…good luck…voxcom (Reliance Protectron since 2008) has a good service over the phone and seems good.
Alarm Force has Best Value
Okay, so one’s a playmate, another is a queen and the other is my lover? How does it all add up? I mean, I haven’t done the research on Voxcom (Reliance Protectron since 2008) yet, but if you made a comparison chart, who is the best when it comes to value? I don’t mean to toot their horn, but I think Alarm Force would come out on top. Basic installation is free, there’s no “up-front” cost (which often turns away young people who have debts ie: most of the Canadian population) and they don’t over-sell options. Also, if the installer works directly for the company as in the case of Alarm Force, I think there tends to be a little more respect for the customer that way. Ever get store-bought furniture delivered from an out-sourced delivery dude? “Uh I don’t really know what color the sofa’s supposed to be man, I just deliver, man” Trust me, better to deal with less out-sourcing. Mind you, I haven’t gotten an alarm system put in yet, but I would consider Alarm Force over others. Yes Joel Matlin is obnoxious at times, but his presence is made. When’s the last time you heard an ADT or Voxcom commercial on the radio? And how easy is it to get help when you need it, be it technical or intrusion based?
- Claude Bussieres
ADT Company
ADT has over 100 years history. This single fact values over all competitors. If you ask me which brand’s decals I will put on my house windows, I don’t think I will put other colors other than ADT blue, fatal temptation.
ADT is good at building brand. On the other hand, you can never be able to find ADT dealer listing on ADT Website. Externally, ADT stresses that ADT is ADT; ADT dealer is ADT dealer; ADT is not ADT dealer; ADT dealer is not ADT. To be a dealer of ADT you need to be super smart since you have to learn a lot of things on your own. That’s the reasons why ADT dealers are smarter.
Compared choosing alarm company to dating, I would say, ADT is a professionally positioned and packaged queen candidate.