Home Security Shootout: Which Watchdog is Leader of the Pack?

Posted 09/27/2011 at 2:03pm | by Michael Brown

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HOME CONTROL

Frankly, we’re surprised it took this long for home-security companies to add home-control features to their existing services. The first thing you’re likely to do if your alarm system goes off at night is turn on a light, right? So it makes perfect sense to have the alarm system turn on the lights for you—and not just the one light that would let the perp know exactly where you are in the house. And if a prowler attempts a break-in, won’t it feel good to hand the police a video clip of the thief in action?

But that’s just scratching the surface. Install a Z-Wave switch and opening the door will also automatically turn on a nearby light (only when it's dark, of course). Install a Z-Wave thermostat and it will automatically adjust so that you’re not heating or cooling an empty house, because the HVAC system will turn off when you leave (you can program recurring heating and cooling schedules, too).

Plug-in Z-Wave modules like this will do the job, but they're ugly. An in-wall switch or dimmer will blend right in with your decor.

A simple plug-in module will convert any receptacle into a Z-Wave switch or dimmer, but these are bulky and not very attractive (they make ordinary wall warts look pretty). Our recommendation: Replace your in-wall switches, dimmers, and receptacles with Z-Wave models. You can install and add them to the security system’s control panel yourself, or you can hire a professional electrician if wiring gives you the willies. Installing a Z-Wave switch or dimmer is not appreciably different than wiring a conventional device, with one exception: You’ll need special Z-Wave companion devices in three- and four-way wiring configurations where a light or ceiling fan is controlled by a wired dimmer or switch in more than one location.

Other types of Z-Wave devices can be more complicated. Scene controllers, for instance, can control multiple lights, ceiling fans, or other devices with the push of a single button (provided that each of those devices is controlled by a Z-Wave dimmer or switch). Scene controllers can set mood lighting or get the house ready for a party. Other types of controllers allow you to remotely control specific lights or devices. Install one in the bedroom, for instance, and you can turn on the porch light if you hear a suspicious noise, or light your way to the kitchen when you get that urge to raid the refrigerator at midnight.

All three of the service providers we reviewed allow you to provision and install your own Z-Wave devices, but ADT limits your choices to products the company has tested and approved. FrontPoint and Vivint aren’t so restrictive, but that doesn’t mean their control panels support every Z-Wave device.

ARMING AND DISARMING YOUR SYSTEM

Once your system is set up, most of your day-to-day interaction with it will be via the control panel as you arm and disarm the system. Assign a PIN to each person to whom you want to grant access to your home, so that you can monitor who’s there at any given time.
An “away” setting typically turns on all the door, window, and motion sensors, but sets an entry delay period of 30 to 180 seconds. This allows you to open a door without triggering an alarm until you can reach the control panel to turn the system off. The panel should allow you to restrict entry delays to particular doors, but entry delays carry risk. If burglars break into your home, an entry delay will give them time to locate your control panel—which will be beeping to remind you to turn it off—and physically disable it by tearing it off the wall and stomping on it or hitting it with a rock or a hammer.

We like touch-screens, but the one that FrontPoint Security provides with its system is just too small for our tired eyes and blunt fingertips.

This is commonly referred to as a “crash-and-smash” break-in. Even if you don’t use an entry delay, any security system will wait 30 seconds after going into an alarm state before it sends an alert to the central office. This is an industry-standard practice intended to reduce the number of police dispatches in response to false alarms.

Some—but not all—of ADT’s systems make a crash-and-smash break-in more difficult by housing the brains of the system in a wall-mounted steel cabinet. The assumption is that a thief will not be able to locate the cabinet, compromise it, and smash the electronics inside before the panel signals the central office. But ADT charges extra for a GSM radio (installed in a second wall-mounted steel box) that will eliminate the risk of a burglar cutting your system off from ADT’s network by snipping your land-line cable (see our review of ADT’s Pulse system).

With a Z-Wave thermostat, you can program your HVAC system so that it shuts down when you leave home for the day and turns back on when you expect to return home.

The Vivint and FrontPoint Security systems we reviewed rely on a third-party central-office monitoring service, Alarm.com, which has a patented solution to guard against crash-and-smash break-ins. When these systems are armed, they send a message to Alarm.com’s central office every time a sensor is tripped. Alarm.com then waits for a second message: Either a disarm signal or an alarm-state signal. If it doesn’t receive either signal, Alarm.com’s central office initiates the dispatch process as if the panel did go into an alarm state.

A “stay” setting usually activates all intrusion sensors, but it leaves the dedicated motion sensors turned off. This enables you to move about the house without triggering an alarm. In this situation, opening a monitored door or window immediately triggers an alarm under the assumption that an intruder has gained access to your home.

ADT provides this much-larger touch-screen with its Pulse Premier system. When you're reading a news update or a weather report, or are manipulating icons and controls with the tip of your finger, size matters.

Many control panels also have one-touch buttons for summoning emergency medical, police, or fire personnel. And if you’re taken hostage inside your home and are forced to disarm the system under threat of violence, all the control panels we reviewed support a special duress code that disarms the system while also sending a silent alert to the central office.

More sophisticated systems, including all three of the ones reviewed here, support other means of arming and disarming the system, too. Smartphone apps and Internet access are typically included with your service plan, but options such as wireless key fobs, panic buttons, electronic door locks, and secondary control panels with keypads or touch-screens might cost extra. Medical-emergency pendants are useful for the elderly and people who live alone. As much as we might laugh at the “I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up!” commercials on TV, at-home slip-and-fall accidents are a grim reality for too many.

STATE OF THE INDUSTRY

Home-security systems have been around for years, but they’ve never been so affordable or so unobtrusive. Home-control products, meanwhile, have never been more affordable or more reliable. The latter technology still has room for improvement—we encountered a few irritating interoperability issues in our tests, and some home-control elements have yet to be incorporated into the systems we tested—but those wrinkles should be fairly easy for the industry to iron out.

Buying a System

Shopping for a home-security system can be as difficult as shopping for a new car, because many of the players horde information so they can connect you to a salesperson to close the deal. Use of third-party dealers, independent door-to-door sales people, and telemarketers render the shopping experience even murkier.

Much like mobile-phone service providers, most home-security vendors subsidize the retail cost of their hardware and make up for it on their monthly fees. When you purchase the system, you’ll be expected to sign a contract committing yourself to the company’s services for one to three or more years. Read this contract carefully before you commit to purchasing the system: Understand exactly what equipment you’re about to purchase, the length of the service agreement, what happens at the end of the contract (some will automatically renew on a month-to-month basis, but some commit you to a full year if you don't cancel in time), and what the penalty is for early termination. These contracts vary from state to state, so we can’t cover them all here.

If you buy an ADT system, add an optional GSM module to the package; otherwise, burglars can disable the system by cutting your land line.

ADT and Vivint both sell tiered packages with bundles of products. Installation is included, but neither company discloses how much it charges on a per-item basis or how much they’re discounting the products in the package. In many cases, they don’t even tell you the make and model of the products you’re buying. Vivint is more transparent than ADT, because they do list prices for individual components on their website (although some are absurdly inflated). FrontPoint is even better: It sells everything a la carte at reasonable prices, and discounts are based on the length of the contract you commit to. Vivint and FrontPoint both require you to speak with a salesperson before you can make a purchase.

ADT doesn’t reveal any pricing information on its website, and when we called the company’s 800 number posing as interested consumers, we were told we’d have to schedule an in-person appointment with a salesperson to discuss pricing. If you’ve never purchased a home-security system, you’ll probably have a few questions that won’t be covered on these companies’ websites. But we hate speaking to any salesperson while armed with nothing but questions.