Alarm Monitoring via Cellular - What is best

[apostolakisl]

I looked at NextAlarm's web site, and they charge $7.50 a month extra for cellular. Unfortunately, it doesn't say if that means it will support a primary wired phone-in and a secondary wireless phone-in, or if the extra $7.50 just gets you the capability to use the wireless as the primary. Guess I need to give them a call.

AFAIK, NextAlarm doesn't care if you use cellular as primary or backup. The bottom line, is that SOMEBODY expects to get paid if you use cellular. If you use NextAlarm's add-on cellular service, they reimburse the company that actually provide the cellular infrastructure (such as UpLink). If you pay your cellular provider directly (by the minute or monthly), then NextAlarm doesn't about the cellular aspect.

Ahhh. So I wad thinking that you still had to pay for monthly cell service on top of that fee. Smarthome is advertising 8.95 for monitoring with a year prepay. They have extra fees for wireless and the woman seemed to be telling me that that was on top of your cell service fees. I really like the concept of getting hai system and for $10 month adding my home phone to my cell plan and then having the alarm monitor that way too

Are you thinking of having the HAI device as primary or backup? Seems to me that if you have it as backup, it would be cheaper (cellular service-wise) to do a pay-as-you-go "by the minute" plan, since it would hopefully seldom use the cellular service. Even if you had it do a test call from the backup every day to ensure it is working (if that is possible to do), it would still be a little cheaper to pay-as-you-go, unless your primary fails really often.

I was thinking of running the HAI/ATT wireless connection into my home wired system and ditching the voip. The HAI orchestrates that connection nicely as I understand. I confirmed with ATT that I can port my voip number to ATT wireless service and for $10/mo share the minutes with my regular cell phone plan. Since I have plenty of minutes on my wireless contract it would be cheaper than the $20 I pay for the voip (ignoring the $250 the HAI unit costs). If I have to buy a cellular to security bridge anyway (for the alarm backup), why not just make it primary and run all my phones through it and never worry about the phone going down with a power failure (as my voip does since the router has no backup electricity), internet outage, or cable tampering.

 

[premiernic]

I looked at NextAlarm's web site, and they charge $7.50 a month extra for cellular. Unfortunately, it doesn't say if that means it will support a primary wired phone-in and a secondary wireless phone-in, or if the extra $7.50 just gets you the capability to use the wireless as the primary. Guess I need to give them a call.

AFAIK, NextAlarm doesn't care if you use cellular as primary or backup. The bottom line, is that SOMEBODY expects to get paid if you use cellular. If you use NextAlarm's add-on cellular service, they reimburse the company that actually provide the cellular infrastructure (such as UpLink). If you pay your cellular provider directly (by the minute or monthly), then NextAlarm doesn't about the cellular aspect.

Ahhh. So I wad thinking that you still had to pay for monthly cell service on top of that fee. Smarthome is advertising 8.95 for monitoring with a year prepay. They have extra fees for wireless and the woman seemed to be telling me that that was on top of your cell service fees. I really like the concept of getting hai system and for $10 month adding my home phone to my cell plan and then having the alarm monitor that way too

Are you thinking of having the HAI device as primary or backup? Seems to me that if you have it as backup, it would be cheaper (cellular service-wise) to do a pay-as-you-go "by the minute" plan, since it would hopefully seldom use the cellular service. Even if you had it do a test call from the backup every day to ensure it is working (if that is possible to do), it would still be a little cheaper to pay-as-you-go, unless your primary fails really often.

I work and live in RURAL colorado. I have used the GSM by HAI as a primary, and backup. I have several seccond home homeowners who find it WAY cheaper to monitor security this way. For 10 dollars you can add a cell to your plan (it may never be used except for the security checks occasionally)
I have also lit up a whole 66 block using this GSM by HAI. My homeowner uses it as a "landline" when he is in town.
GREAT product, you wont be let down.

 

[ano]

I have an HAI panel and I use monitoring with Next Alarm over TCP/IP using an ATA (Analog Telephone Adapter). This makes my TCP/IP connection "look" like an analog telephone to the panel. Can I use the HAI Cellular adapter as a backup to this ATA adapter?

 

[apostolakisl]

I looked at NextAlarm's web site, and they charge $7.50 a month extra for cellular. Unfortunately, it doesn't say if that means it will support a primary wired phone-in and a secondary wireless phone-in, or if the extra $7.50 just gets you the capability to use the wireless as the primary. Guess I need to give them a call.

AFAIK, NextAlarm doesn't care if you use cellular as primary or backup. The bottom line, is that SOMEBODY expects to get paid if you use cellular. If you use NextAlarm's add-on cellular service, they reimburse the company that actually provide the cellular infrastructure (such as UpLink). If you pay your cellular provider directly (by the minute or monthly), then NextAlarm doesn't about the cellular aspect.

Ahhh. So I wad thinking that you still had to pay for monthly cell service on top of that fee. Smarthome is advertising 8.95 for monitoring with a year prepay. They have extra fees for wireless and the woman seemed to be telling me that that was on top of your cell service fees. I really like the concept of getting hai system and for $10 month adding my home phone to my cell plan and then having the alarm monitor that way too

Are you thinking of having the HAI device as primary or backup? Seems to me that if you have it as backup, it would be cheaper (cellular service-wise) to do a pay-as-you-go "by the minute" plan, since it would hopefully seldom use the cellular service. Even if you had it do a test call from the backup every day to ensure it is working (if that is possible to do), it would still be a little cheaper to pay-as-you-go, unless your primary fails really often.

I work and live in RURAL colorado. I have used the GSM by HAI as a primary, and backup. I have several seccond home homeowners who find it WAY cheaper to monitor security this way. For 10 dollars you can add a cell to your plan (it may never be used except for the security checks occasionally)
I have also lit up a whole 66 block using this GSM by HAI. My homeowner uses it as a "landline" when he is in town.
GREAT product, you wont be let down.

So when you hook up your HAI to the monitoring station, is it done just as though it were a landline? No extra monthly or setup charges? Do they even know that it is a GSM line?

Thanks for the info. It is great to hear from someone who is actually doing it, and no less has access to many other homes using the same setup.

 

[apostolakisl]

So I ordered the HAI C3 unit. Found it a little cheaper on setnetpro.com than everywhere else. It was like $235 with shipping. Seems like a lot for a cell phone but what can you do?

Looking forward to giving it a try. Before committing to another phone line and transferring my home phone number to it I am going to try sticking my sim card from my iphone into it and make sure all works as expected.

 

[pete_c]

Yesterday I purchased a new "old" Uplink GSM communicator 2550 for $87 for my HAI panel.

I don't know anything about this device and now wondering if I made a good choice or wasting my money?

Anyone out there familiar with this box?

 

[apostolakisl]

OK the HAI C3 is fully installed, up and running. It seems to work as billed. I hooked up to the alarm monitoring endorsed by smart home for 8.95 a month plus an activation fee. The HAI calls in the alarm just as if it were a land line, no extra fees or anything. It is also running my home phone. My dial tone is now different, but other than that it is the same as a landline. It costs me $10/mo to add it to my ATT cell phone service and shares the minutes.

I now have an alarm and home phone system that can not be tampered with (at least not by any reasonable method). It works if the power goes out as well since the HAI has a built in battery. And it effectively only costs $10/mo since I don't need any more minutes.

 

[Desert_AIP]

I am keeping my hardline for phone and data but want to use the HAI cell for the Omni since I am rural and my phoneline can't really be protected from cutting.
Looking inside my cheap Trac phone I see a SIM card.
Will a prepaid SIM card like that work inside the HAI Cell interface?
As long as the minutes don't expire due to age of course.

 

[apostolakisl]

I am keeping my hardline for phone and data but want to use the HAI cell for the Omni since I am rural and my phoneline can't really be protected from cutting.
Looking inside my cheap Trac phone I see a SIM card.
Will a prepaid SIM card like that work inside the HAI Cell interface?
As long as the minutes don't expire due to age of course.

It works on GSM. I believe all SIM cards are designed for GSM. So, your SIM card should connect the HAI to whatever account the SIM is registered to with however many minutes that the account has available.

One shortfall, it does not appear that the HAI passes caller id through. I have a call into HAI to find out if indeed this is the case or if I have something setup wrong. I doubt I set it up wrong, however, because there is really nothing to setup. You just stick in the sim card and plug it in to the wall and to the phone.

 

[cyberk]

I'm using a GS3060 - GSM Universal Wireless Alarm Communicator with AlarmRelay. It's worked 100% of the time so far and alarmrelay handles the gsm subscription. I was told I couldn't put my own sim card in it like the HAI system which kinda made me sad, supposedly it can only dial out. AlarmRelay has been great so far, they walked me through the setup of the M1G and call me every time I mess with my system, lol. I wish they had internet monitoring as a backup though, as far as I know they dont offer that service yet

I'm very interested in finding a cellular unit that I can use to dial in because I really want to use the voice monitoring functionality of my elk m1g.

As for the subscription, I was planning on just adding a line to my family plan for 9.99/month. If minutes were an issue, ATT has A-List, so you can add your alarm companies number and get unlimited calling to and from.

will that HAI device allow me to dial in and use voice features on the elk m1? any ideas?