Alarm Relay and HAI C3 for Elk M1 monitoring?

E

energy_conscious

Member
I have an Elk M1 Gold system newly installed and am trying to figure out the best and most cost effective setup for monitoring.

From reading this forum, I surmise that Alarm Relay is a good monitoring company to use. Has anyone had any reliability problems with them (i.e. not being notified of an alarm) or is there any other reason to use someone else?

Also, from this forum (and from calling Alarm Relay), I hear that the HAI C3 would be good to get to protect against a burglar cutting our FIOS connection or a power outage (and that Uplink is another option but that folks have had trouble with it). Again, is there any reason not to get the HAI C3 or are there better options?? (the Alarm Relay rep also mentioned "RokoNet" but not a specific product -- anyone know of what she might have been referring to?)

A couple general questions:
*Should my primary connection to the monitoring service be the FIOS phone line (already connected to my Alarm Panel) or IP via the M1XEP (also already connected)?? Does it make sense to use both in some way (given that both are through FIOS)?

*Is there any way to be notified if my phone line and/or IP connection to the monitoring service goes down??


And I doubt anyone can help me with this, but is there any way to test whether I'll get a TMobile or ATT signal from my basement other than getting a phone or the C3 and paying for the service or finding someone who has a phone on those services? (most folks I know around here have Verizon)...

Thanks much for any/all advice!
Dave.
 
The C3 seems to work well with AlarmRelay AFAICT.

As for reception, I think the best way is to try it out with a C3. Even if a phone does show bars, it's no guarantee the signal will be strong enough for the C3. I had a signal that turned out to be marginal and ended up having to switch carriers to get something that was good enough for the C3. Antenna placement also makes a difference so be sure to experiment a little.

As for the logistics and expenditure involved, if you can't borrow a SIM card from a friend to try out the relevant GSM carriers, you can always go the prepaid SIM route for not-too-much.
 
what is the cost for alarm relay with the hai c3? I have another thread going, i connect to them via ip but I get way to many disconnect errors every week..
 
Re: cost for Alarm Relay, my understanding is that the basic fee is $142 for the first year (including setup fee), and then basically $125/year after that. And they say there's a $15 setup fee for adding cellular service, and $48/year for support (including timer test, phone support, and internet/email access for status info) -- can anyone say whether that's worth it??

If you're having errors connecting them via IP, would it then be better to connect to them via a phone line?? Or to use both somehow? (in addition to the cellular backup)
And is there a way to be notified if the phone line and/or IP connection goes down for longer than a few seconds?

Re: testing cellular reception, I was able to get a cheap phone and SIM card from T-Mobile ($25 including 10 minutes), and successfully tested it...
 
Hello, I am new to the forum (first post) and in the same shoes as you. I just installed the M1 Gold (with the HAI C3) and was going to just self monitor, but since I read about the $8.95 alarm relay deal, figured I would do that. I haven't pulled the trigger yet as I am still tweaking my setup and want to play with it before anyone is monitoring.

You mentioned cost of $125 a year, which would be $10.50 a month, which does not match.

Also, why would cellular be extra cast as there is nothing for them to "setup" or do with the C3. It is a simple dialer if your landline goes out. I believe the regular $8.95 deal allows for IP monitoring or landline, so the C3 would not make a difference.

As for signal, I happen to have AT&T on my wife's phone, so I put in her SIM into the C3 to test it out in my panel location. Works fine even when the C3 antenna is just laying on the floor before I mounted it. If you know someone with AT&T and can borrow their SIM, this would be a test.
 
Re: cost, Alarm Relay charges ~$10.50/month for the 3rd year of monitoring forward. And, yes, I don't think there should be an extra cost for cellular (but don't have any experience with them yet).

I haven't gotten the HAI C3 yet. Is it easy to install? And will it work correctly as a backup? (i.e. is there a way to detect when the phone line isn't working and then use the cell connection instead?)
 
energy_conscious said:
Re: cost, Alarm Relay charges ~$10.50/month for the 3rd year of monitoring forward. And, yes, I don't think there should be an extra cost for cellular (but don't have any experience with them yet).

I haven't gotten the HAI C3 yet. Is it easy to install? And will it work correctly as a backup? (i.e. is there a way to detect when the phone line isn't working and then use the cell connection instead?)
Click to expand...

While I have not put the money down to buy the dedicated SIM yet (just got the system up and running this week), I have tested the system with my wife's card and it is very simple. Hookup is about as basic as you can get (I have a photo but not seeing how to attach). The C3 is in series between the M1's Rj31x to the POTS line, so if the POTS line loses connection, it will take over (automatically) with a distinctive dial tone. You can also manually invoke the C3 by pressing "*" to get a dial tone from the box at any time. The way it is wired any phone in my house will get to to use the C3 as a backup (just of course not when the M1 seizes the line).

As for alarm relay, I was planning on doing a year contract. If I say I will cancel, I bet they will keep the $8.95. Or by then there may be some more competition.
.
 
I have elk/haic3/alarm relay for over a year. There was/is no extra charge for using cellular/haic3. In fact, you don't even need to tell them that you are using the c3 as it makes no difference. They can't tell and the settings are the same. It works great for me. 0 problems. The signal on my c3 is all but one bar with no antenna plugged in at all and all bars with it plugged in. My unit is in the attic however. I have att prepaid for $100/year (which is all the minutes you need and many more). Buy the minute at the kiosk since they take the flat $100 and subract the sales tax but still give you the full year of expiration. Saves $8 in sales tax since you won't run out of minutes, it is the 1 year expiration that gets you.

There are other types of cellular service that they do charge extra for, but I believe those systems don't require you to buy the minutes.
 
I sent a mail to them this AM and got this reply for my questions:
1) Some on the forums say that you charge extra for the cellular backup with the C3.
Not true. It is still $8.95 as you provide your own minutes for it.

2) I have read of connectivity issues with your service and the M1EXP ethernet module. Such as IP Connection drops and no notification until the connection restores. Can you tell me if this has been resolved?
The Elk IP module doesn’t provide us with a heartbeat at this time as we do not have the specific receiver needed for that. Although we can and do monitor customers that way, unfortunately if the connection is dropped, we have no way of knowing about it UNTIL it restores, and dumps the buffer. We cannot resolve this until/unless we get an Elk receiver, which we may do at some point in the future, but that would depend on how many customers we have that use the Elk.

Also today I was poking around amazon and saw a place selling unused SIMs for AT&T. I ended up getting one for a whopping $2.09 with shipping. I plan on going to gophone (AT&T) to activate for $0.10/min with no monthly fee. This sounds like the most cost effective solution to me.
 
I have used Alarm Relay to monitor two properties for over 8 years, and have found them to be a very reliable company.
 
RobNJ said:
I sent a mail to them this AM and got this reply for my questions:
1) Some on the forums say that you charge extra for the cellular backup with the C3.
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2) I have read of connectivity issues with your service and the M1EXP ethernet module. Such as IP Connection drops and no notification until the connection restores. Can you tell me if this has been resolved?
The Elk IP module doesn’t provide us with a heartbeat at this time as we do not have the specific receiver needed for that. Although we can and do monitor customers that way, unfortunately if the connection is dropped, we have no way of knowing about it UNTIL it restores, and dumps the buffer. We cannot resolve this until/unless we get an Elk receiver, which we may do at some point in the future, but that would depend on how many customers we have that use the Elk.

color]
Click to expand...


#2 sounds like a cop out on their part. Almost any of the IP receivers supervise the heartbeat, so it sounds like they're not using a Sur-Gard or Osbourne-Hoffman unit, but a generic virtual receiver. Makes no difference what the hardware connected at the premeses is, as a FACP or any burg panel with a TCP/IP communicator that has the heartbeat/keep-alive being sent via packet, it sounds like they're trying to minimize their bandwidth or have an equipment issue, as alluded to. Could also be they don't want to provide the manpower and effort to supervise all these sorts of accounts on non-enterprise grade IP networks or ISP's.
 
I spoke to Alarm relay a few days ago in regards to the same dropping issue. the guy was really nice but he spent the first 10 minutes blaming it on my internet connection even after I explaned that I could open up vpn connectios to my office and have them run for 60-90 days without a hicuup. He spent the second 10 minutes explaining/blaming it on the elk ethernet card resetting itself even though i can ping the elk non-stop and not lose a packet for days at a time.

they never blamed their equipment once...

Is there anyone else that can monitor the elk via IP?


DELInstallations said:
#2 sounds like a cop out on their part. Almost any of the IP receivers supervise the heartbeat, so it sounds like they're not using a Sur-Gard or Osbourne-Hoffman unit, but a generic virtual receiver. Makes no difference what the hardware connected at the premeses is, as a FACP or any burg panel with a TCP/IP communicator that has the heartbeat/keep-alive being sent via packet, it sounds like they're trying to minimize their bandwidth or have an equipment issue, as alluded to. Could also be they don't want to provide the manpower and effort to supervise all these sorts of accounts on non-enterprise grade IP networks or ISP's.
Click to expand...
 
Any interesting fact about internet alarm reporting is that more and more telephones are switching to VOIP. They are still using the internet for reporting alarm messages if the phone system is VOIP. The M1XEP needs to talk to a Sur-Gard alarm receiver at the central station. This is one of the most widely used alarm receivers used by central stations. The alarm reporting protocol follows the SIA Internet Alarm Reporting Standard.

A combination Internet and/or cellular alarm reporting is the future. The day of the hard wired telephone line is rapidly coming to an end.

The future generations of security controls will not have a telephone line connection.
 
I have the ELK M1G and have purchased the HAI C3 communication.  I need to install with a VOIP phone line instead of a POTS line.  The VOIP service is provided by a modem connected directly to my wireless router.  I can not find anywhere in the installation instruction on how to connect with type of a set up.  I did set up the C3 with the VOIP (not connected to M1G) to test signal strength and it seems fine.  I must say though that I seem to get static on the VOIP line now that I didn;t get before.  So I have two questions for the expertise here 1) Should I consider only using the C3 GSM as primary and not interface with the VOIP line for some reason and 2) how do I install the C3 with the VOIP line instead of POTS line? 
 
A big thank you to everyone in this forums who takes the time to assist others.  I admit that this whole alarm/home automation has been way out of my knowledge base but with everyone's help here and I slowly but surely accomplishing one add on project at time without having to mortgage house to pay installers.
 
Linda,
 
Is that SIM a non expiring minutes one or to the minutes go away after a period of time?
 
To date here I have not had issues with the CC VOIP and FIOS VOIP (?) stuff relating to the panel but wondering if the VOIP providing ISP is doing some shaping or QOS modding of the VOIP line where as it has issues with the Alarm standards?  Midwest still using a POTs line.
 
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