The Smart Money: Pro Monitoring Winning the Battle vs. Self Monitoring

The core value of home security solutions lies in the peace of mind they provide. While features like emergency response, intrusion detection, and 24/7 monitoring are important, what consumers are truly paying for is confidence that they know what is happening at home, that their homes and households are in their control, and they can get help in an emergency.

The sense of safety, trust, and control is what truly defines the value of home security. Consumers expect and are paying for fast, meaningful response during emergencies. These users confirm pro monitoring is a superior customer experience and that sentiment has grown over the past few years.

Regardless of installation method, those with paid self-monitoring of systems are less satisfied than households with professional monitoring; however, the trade-offs a customer must make to get “good enough” security may be too much.

Most self-monitored system users once felt their systems are just as safe as professionally monitored ones, but that sentiment is waning. In order to upgrade self-monitoring subscribers to higher priced pro tiers, the differences between services must be crystal clear. Additionally, professional monitoring may need to expand beyond its core emergency services value proposition to move these types of subscribers to a pro service.

That said, false alarms, alert fatigue, and municipal limitations are undercutting the core value of professionally monitored systems. If law enforcement doesn’t respond, then customers question its value.

The industry is responding to this with the AVS-01 standard and alarm verification processes, such as video verification. Systems and services that do not incorporate next-generation verification techniques will fall far behind their competition and eventually become completely antiquated.

Beyond Montoring: Selling Customers on ROI

Consumers want to be aware of what is happening in their home: who is home, is there something wrong, is someone there that shouldn’t be, is my home functioning optimally, how can I save money and/or time? To date, many of these questions have been solved by point solutions, or add-on devices. The next generation may need far less hardware to provide the same benefits.

The desire for smart home benefits is the top purchase trigger for security systems. Demand for home automation is getting stronger as seen both in this trending view and when considering age of system.

·         31% select smart home benefits as a purchase trigger in 2024 vs 19% in 2021

·         38% of security system owners who purchased their system in the past two years cite demand for smart home features as a purchase trigger, compared with just 22% of those whose systems are 5+ years in age.

Security providers who do not already message home awareness and automation as a major (if not the primary) benefit of home security systems, may be missing out on the most powerful messaging to relate to today’s buyers. A variety of secondary triggers are also important, including lifestyle changes, insurance discounts, and local crime, but the value of a home security system to know who is home, what is happening in the home, and to give the residents control and support to adapt to changing conditions is now central to the home security value proposition.

Security providers have a significant opportunity to expand their value by offering premium software-defined solutions that enhance protection, convenience, and connectivity—both within the home and across the broader smart living ecosystem.

· Personal security – securing the person in and out of the home, through mobile and wearable apps

· Safety – detect fire, gas, stoves left on, monitoring of pool area, falls, lights come on as you approach door

· Asset protection – HVAC operation, appliance operation, water monitoring; use cases that provide peace of mind for their largest investment (the home) the largest purchases in the home (HVAC/appliances), and insurance cost savings.

· Ecosystem value – the intelligence, context, and control providers offer are valuable to other ecosystem players, not just consumers. Technology solutions can help skilled trades evolve their own services with next-generation or premium tier service levels. Offer companies in the HVAC, plumbing, electrician, and pool services industries new ways to connect with and support their customers, generate leads, and smooth out seasonal spikes in business.

ISPs and mobile carriers have a strong opportunity in the future of the smart security space, as they are uniquely positioned to integrate security services seamlessly into the home ecosystem, offering added value beyond basic internet and mobile plans. Traditional security players can take a page from the telco playbook in offering bundles of services and tiers of value to reach an even broader customer segment and make services stickier.

This article is excerpted from the whitepaper Home Security Reimagined: Intelligence over Hardware, published by Parks Associates in partnership with Ubiety Technologies. It explores the forces driving the economic and technological shifts reshaping home security, and the steps the industry must take to remain relevant. Access it at www.parksassociates.com