Alarm dealers and systems owners have always wanted to do more with the technology going into businesses and residences, but the challenge has often been one of the interface. With more and more Americans spending additional time on-the-go, alarm and home automation companies enabled their systems to be accessed by phone and, lately, even by computer. The concept is fairly simple; connect people with their alarm systems for peace of mind, so that even Mr. Worrier could check his alarm system status, even when he was in a hotel room a thousand miles away.
Alarm.com, a security and monitoring technology company based in McLean, Va., that has about 350 dealers across the U.S. and Canada, is taking that accessibility of system control one step further. The company, known for its embrace of interactive and wireless technologies, recently announced that it had built a special PDA-compatible version of its website that allows security system owners to adjust their home controls directly from their PDAs.
The PDA site (online at www.alarm.com/PDA) gives a PDA compatible version of the page to control their home systems, no longer requiring PDA users to struggle with a page designed for a much larger computer screen. The interface allows system arming and disarming, and can provide information to the system owner on the system's status. The push toward interactive on-the-control even has allowed the system owners to change codes and adjust lights if they are networked with the system.
Of course, though checking the PDA access for the alarm system won't ever be as central to a person's day as email, the move is a small step in our industry's ongoing push to make its security technology more and more central to it customers' lives.
