Did users know that 98% of all alarms are false alarms? ADT introduced SMART (System Monitoring and Response Technology) which has already helped to reduce false alarms by 53% percent. Carie Small, Director of Operations, ADT SMART Monitoring, shares more details about SMART and what ADT is doing to help continue to reduce false alarms and make emergency response more impactful.
How many alarms are false alarms?
The vast majority of alarms are false alarms. Data shows that 98% of all alarms in the industry are false alarms. And a majority of them happen during the arming and disarming of the system.
What impact do false alarms have?
False alarms take away precious resources from the monitoring centre and public safety
False alarms take away precious resources from the monitoring centre and public safety. And for consumers, they can be scary, embarrassing, and even costly.
Across the country, many municipalities charge a fee for false alarms. So if police are dispatched and respond to a false alarm, it can sometimes cost consumers hundreds or even thousands of dollars becoming a costly situation.
What is ADT doing to help reduce false alarms?
ADT has implemented the SMART monitoring platform. SMART stands for System Monitoring And Response Technology.
ADT has Alarm Messenger which sends a text message to end-users and also their emergency contacts when an alarm happens. They receive a text with a link to a portal and when they open the portal, they can see their alarm information, and then they can cancel or request the police.
How does this process differ from previous systems?
Traditionally when an alarm goes off, the alarm signal goes directly to the monitoring centre where the monitoring agent will follow a standard process of calling first the premise and then the emergency contacts. If they don't reach anybody, then they will dispatch.
SMART monitoring, Alarm Messanger verify the alarm themselves without the need for a phone call
And that is how 98% of false alarms are dispatched. So ADT is trying to reduce that by implementing Alarm Messenger so the end-users have better information to cancel and reduce false alarms. And then they have better information to verify the alarms themselves and receive priority response from public safety. So SMART monitoring and Alarm Messanger allow all this to happen without the need for a phone call.
What impact will these new systems have?
Alarm Messenger has been launched for a year and we already have 3.4 million customers using it since launching it, we have seen a 53% reduction in false alarms. So that means almost 2 million times, we have been able to suppress an alarm before it goes to the agent.
And that’s a big win for ADT and the industry to reduce those false alarms but also for consumers with that additional information, they've been able to play a part in false alarm reduction as well and reduce their fees.
