Omnipro II and monitoring company

av8r

Member
I've got an Omnipro II and I'm looking for a monitoring company.  I've zeroed in on Alarm Relay.  They offer, after equipment purchase, for $15.95/mo, monitoring using a device they call "ip bat cdma/ip dual path alarm transmitter communicator", which includes any cellular charges.  It communicates with the central station, and has email and texting ability. 
 
It wires into the panel and has an Ethernet connection, which seems redundant since I can already remotely access with Haiku via internet.
 
If you back out the cost of the standard land line monitoring @ $8.95/mo, that leaves $7/mo for cell charges.  Seems like a good deal, price wise, but I feel the Omnipro II already has that function built in, aside from the cellular backup.
 
I understand that HAI has come out with an email/texting add on board. 
 
Is anyone here using the HAI email/text hardware with a monitoring service, that competes with the above described?
 
Paul
 
Alarm Relay is a great company (and very local for me, about 2 miles up the road).
 
However, don't confuse what the ethernet port on the monitoring board they give you and the ethernet port on the Omni do.  The monitoring board needs network connectivity to reach alarm relay in its "primary" path, the internet.  You need to connect the Omni to use Haiku and what not.  Different uses mean different ports.
 
The e-mail board that Leviton sells is just that, a board that can send e-mail.  It's not designed to send monitoring stations the myriad signals they need to get (troubles, bypasses, alarms, etc) with confirmation back to the panel that it was received.  It's designed to send short e-mails as a convenience feature.
 
So, short story, you won't find a monitoring company that will use the Leviton e-mail board because it's not designed to do it.
 
Personally, I use a hard line that runs through an HAI C3.  I added the SIM card to my AT&T family plan for something like 8 bucks a month.  Side benefit is that I also get to use that "line" to upgrade my real phone every year instead of every two... (one year I use my real phone line, next year I borrow the SIM's phone line's upgrade eligibility).
 
It really is't Leviton's fault that the Ethernet port on the OMNI doesn't support monitoring OR email. Their is no standard for IP monitoring so its not possible for the OMNI to support it since no standard exists. These IS a standard for dial-up access, which it does support. That is why you need a "box" to offer Internet monitoring.
 
Email is a bit different. There are email standards, but SSL and moden email processing requires much more horsepower than the OMNI has, so that is why the add-on board. What makes me upset is that Leviton could of added a IP switch to their email board, so an external switch wasn't required, but they didn't. So now you need 2 Ethernet ports for the OMNI AND the email board and yet another for an external alarm company IP adapter.
 
Alarm Relay/Watchlight is a great company, very responsive.  I've been using them for 5 years after recommendation here.
 
I also use them with a POTS/C3 cell backup.
 
Ok, so, it seems that the ip/cdma box that Alarm Relay sells is comparable in price to the HAI pots/c3 box, and the $7/mo upcharge that Alarm Relay charges is comparable to the $8/mo for a GSM SIM.
 
Also, it seems, the difference is that the ip/cdma box has better primary communications than the pots/c3 box, and the ip/cdma box is tied to Verizon or whoever Alarm Relay contracts with, so it probably wouldn't be supported if I changed monitoring companies, I'm guessing.  Plus, there are more cell companies that support GSM.
 
Am I thinking correctly about this?
 
I'm at the end of my first year with Alarm Relay and the service has been fine. My problem is the renewal bill. They are billing me $9.95/month for the monitoring where everyone else gets $8.95/month and they are billing $12/month for the cellular backup when they normally charge $8.00/month.
 
 
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