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Comment by abstractbarista | Hacker News Reader

Seems like a bad idea to me. But I'm someone who would never use or recommend ADT in the first place. People don't seem to realize... You can run your own serious alarm system (DSC is a great brand) and then self-monitor with devices like the Envisalink. This integrates with Home Assistant too. All the awesome functionality for $0/mo.

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You could build a lot of things yourself, but there is a limited scope of things people have the time and skills to build

>All the awesome functionality for $0/mo.

Except the time it took you to research, install, validate it's running, and do general upkeep. Also doesn't help you if you're on vacation with limited internet service.

And most importantly, the fact that you have to respond even with your own monitoring. That's most of what you pay ADT for. If they get a ping, they call you. If they can't get in touch with you, they dispatch the relevant people.

Yes you can set this up yourself (and spend a lot more on the hardware, which they generally give to you pretty cheaply or even "free" because you're signing a contract) but when you go hiking in the mountains and someone uses your Facebook posts as a cue that you're out of town, you're SOL.

Don't get me wrong I love looking at all the home security stuff you can do, and it does indeed sound like a neat project. But you're really paying these companies for monitoring and automatic (human) response, not the security systems themselves.

> And most importantly, the fact that you have to respond even with your own monitoring.

So true, my dad has a monitoring system he built and he constantly looks at his phone as a deer or bear or something triggers it. I'd imagine the lost productivity for people who depend on the flow for work would be immense.

Of course, a very good point. For me it's a hobby which I enjoy.

In an area without Internet service, for me, it is common to miss calls as well. Plus, from personal experience, the security company will not notify law enforcement until they have called you to confirm it is not a false-positive alarm.

In my case, before the alarm goes off due to a forced entry, I will have automatically received notifications with snapshots of people around my property. Even if the security company had called immediately, a response would take >10 minutes. So I just self-monitor.

Overall, with home security you basically just want to be a more annoying, harder target than your closest neighbors. It's sad but true.

Contrast that with all of the labor required to pay for the security system and it seems that you still come out ahead

For the average computer programmer it comes out to around an hour of labor per month. Two if you get the fancy security package. Security equipment is generally free with the monthly subscription.

That's a surprisingly large amount of work, what is involved?

If you want support/service/monitoring by someone not you, security companies do have a purpose. Depends on your situation though.

And will home owners insurance give you the "security system discount" if it's not a professionally monitored system?

Yes. Because I have that discount and I do not have a professionally monitored system.

(Arguably, these discounts are things they trust you at your word for, but perhaps if they're not satisfied they're true during a claim, they might use it as a reason to not pay out.)

All of the insurance companies I got quotes from make you list your alarm company and account number on the policy.

Also, the discount is for central monitoring, not merely having a system.

I'd reread your paperwork if I were you. It sounds like you could have falsified information, and effectively have no insurance.

No, they require it to be centrally monitored, not user monitored. I just went through the process with 5 different insurance carriers for a new home.

Or setup your own system and monitor through alarm.com. That's who ADT uses for their Blue system. Yes, ADT uses alarm.com for their newest system.

I wonder what happens to Alarm.com. Do they get bought out by a competitor (possibly Apple), or will their revenue slowly dry up? The ALRM stock price dropped sharply right as this was announced.

Alarm.com has built some of their own hardware, but their operation is obviously much smaller than Nest. Can they still compete?

On the other hand Wyze has most of the things security systems need available. They hinted towards much more affordable home security services. I rather just wait till their options available. All of the things you mention are kind of useless when you go on vacatiom out of the country or you are somewhere rural.

Since you enjoy it, you could set up a little did business helping people set it up.

Call yourself BEU Security.

That's basically the premise behind Surety. Except Surety systems are centrally monitored after the DIY install and have tons of customization options.

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