NextAlarm

[Steve]

Hi,

We are very closely tied to our central stations, but we are different entities. We use General Monitoring Services, which is in California, and Amcest Nationwide Monitoring, which is in New Jersey. We also offer service in Canada through BPG, in Montreal.

I can't really address specific accounts in a public forum, but generally speaking, our operators do err on the side of caution in these cases (i.e. they'll tend to dispatch rather than not dispatch if there's any doubt), so I apologize for the inconvenience. If you let us know through the customer service ticket system, we can fix the problem, if it hasn't been already.

Dan,

I just signed up for your service (and need to sign up another person) and during the signup process was told I was not in a NextAlarm territory and that I would be an AMCEST customer and was directed to MyAlarm.info. What exactly is your relationship with them? Do all of your customers get assigned to one of these entities? Are they just the dispatch center but they still use your equipment? Are all of your features and support identical? Will the Elk ethernet monitoring be available thru them as well when released? Do you have 'authority' there where we can still rely on your excellent support?

I have been convinced over the last few months that NextAlarm was the place to be when I needed to sign up, but was a little 'concerned' being redirected to AMCEST.

 

[Dan_NA]

It's purely a licensing issue. Amcest is licensed in a few areas where we are not. We've basically duplicated our service at Amcest for this reason. You'll still receive exactly the same features and prices, including Elk IP monitoring as soon as its available. The only difference is that you hear "Amcest" when you call instead of "NextAlarm".

 

[rfdesq]

Dan:

Any update on two way monitoring?

 

[Dan_NA]

No specific update at this time, just the "Coming soon" that I seem to be throwing out far too often :unsure:. That and the Osborne-Hoffman are the next big projects for us.

We did just show some very nice video features at ISC, which use a standard Linksys webcam and tie it into both your dispatched monitoring service, and the self-monitoring features on our website (online signal log, E-Notify, etc). That will be available to everyone this month.

 

[Steve]

It's purely a licensing issue. Amcest is licensed in a few areas where we are not. We've basically duplicated our service at Amcest for this reason. You'll still receive exactly the same features and prices, including Elk IP monitoring as soon as its available. The only difference is that you hear "Amcest" when you call instead of "NextAlarm".

Ok, thanks Dan. You have 2 new customers...

 

[ano]

I have had NextAlarm for some time now, and I can't say its been troublefree. My panel is a HAI Omni Pro II, which Next Alarm claims to support.

When I log in to their site, I always get a message saying:
System Busy - The system is currently too busy to process your request. Please try again in a few minutes.

Not very reassuring that they will be able to process my alarm.

About 6 months ago, I noticed that the Next Alarm activity log wasn't correctly identifying all the arm and disarm codes from my panel. I contacted tech support, and the problem was corrected, but I checked again last week, and it was broken again. Got to log another trouble ticket for the same issue already resolved.

 

[tuantu]

I have the same message every time I logged on I would get "System Busy". It's been doing this for at least 1 year. In order for me to get Activity Log I kept on hitting the refresh button and wait for about 2-10 minutes to get log display.

The other problem is recently (within the last couple of weeks) when I do quick arm from my alarm panel it will not register as system been armed on the NextAlarm log, however, individual user code arming works fine.

 

[ano]

For me, Quick Arm works, but program arm and disarm are broken. I use a keyfob to arm, and disarm the panel, and a line of code translates the keyfob receiver to an arm or disarm.

 

[Dan_NA]

I have had NextAlarm for some time now, and I can't say its been troublefree. My panel is a HAI Omni Pro II, which Next Alarm claims to support.

When I log in to their site, I always get a message saying:
System Busy - The system is currently too busy to process your request. Please try again in a few minutes.

Not very reassuring that they will be able to process my alarm.

About 6 months ago, I noticed that the Next Alarm activity log wasn't correctly identifying all the arm and disarm codes from my panel. I contacted tech support, and the problem was corrected, but I checked again last week, and it was broken again. Got to log another trouble ticket for the same issue already resolved.

Wow, that's really strange. Would anyone who is experiencing this System Busy problem either PM me your account information, or open a customer service ticket from our site? This is honestly the first we've heard of it. That message would be shown if our site were down for maintenance or repairs, but that doesn't happen often, and it's almost always in the middle of the night when it does.

Our website is entirely separate from our dispatch centers, so that won't affect operator alarm response, but there is definitely something strange happening there that needs to be addressed.


Regarding signals being logged or not, that's based on what your system sends to us. Is it possible the report codes programmed into your system have changed?

 

[ano]

On the System Busy issue, I haven't reported it because I really don't think its just me. At home I use Safari on a Mac, so maybe it was related to that, but I just tried at work, on a PC with XP using IE, and while I didn't get the system busy message, it did take in excess of 60 seconds from the time I click "Login" to the time the event log is actually displayed.

On the report codes, the codes have never changed, and I know for a fact that HAI has not changed these codes in at least 5 years. I have old HAI documentation, and these codes are exactly the same. The problem occurs when NextAlarm updates its software. As I said, these codes stopped working in the past, I reported it, it was fixed, but then another NextAlarm software update was made, and I broke again. I'm using the stock Contact ID codes. They were never changed on my panel, although I think I have the option to change them if I wanted to.

 

[Dan_NA]

You have a reply to your service ticket that explains things. I do recommend changing the report code in your panel as described in the reply, since it is possible to do that with HAI systems.

 

[Digger]

No specific update at this time, just the "Coming soon" that I seem to be throwing out far too often . That and the Osborne-Hoffman are the next big projects for us.

We did just show some very nice video features at ISC, which use a standard Linksys webcam and tie it into both your dispatched monitoring service, and the self-monitoring features on our website (online signal log, E-Notify, etc). That will be available to everyone this month.

Hey Dan,

Any news on the TCP/IP Monitoriing yet?

Thanks

 

[eufreka]

No specific update at this time, just the "Coming soon" that I seem to be throwing out far too often . That and the Osborne-Hoffman are the next big projects for us.

We did just show some very nice video features at ISC, which use a standard Linksys webcam and tie it into both your dispatched monitoring service, and the self-monitoring features on our website (online signal log, E-Notify, etc). That will be available to everyone this month.

Hey Dan,

Any news on the TCP/IP Monitoriing yet?

Thanks

I don't know if he is still around...I have sent several private messages, etc., but have gotten no response.