Alarm.com sponsors home safety week

MCLEAN, Va.--Thanks to sponsorship from wireless, web-enabled security provider Alarm.com, this week is the first annual Home Security Week at the Home Safety Council. HSC is a national nonprofit group, located in Washington, D.C., that seeks to reduce injuries within the home. The group has active partnerships with other nonprofit groups, government agencies and private sector corporations. It has many ties with fire industry groups and companies; the partnership with Alarm.com is its first with a security company. Alarm.com's product is particularly well suited to HSC's mission, said Mary Knebel, vice president of business development for Alarm.com, because it is designed to "provide home security beyond intrusion detection." The product notifies homeowners, via email, cell phone or PDA of events in a home, whether it's someone breaking into the home, or an event happening inside the home, such as a medicine cabinet or pool gate being opened. It can be used to safeguard children and older adults in a home when the homeowner is at work, for example. "We were very excited when Alarm.com contacted us to talk about this technology," said Angela Mickalide, director of education and outreach for the Home Safety Council. "It provides an extra layer of protection to make sure your family is safe." Alarm.com is providing home security tips for homeowners to HSC. They will be available through HSC's web site, which, Mickalide noted, gets heavy traffic, including 11,000 unique visitors every month. This information will also be provided to HSC's Expert Network, which comprises 3,750 fire and life-safety experts in the United States, mainly firefighters, public health educators and other fire and life-safety professionals. These experts dispense information in their local communities. Alarm.com intends to sponsor Home Safety Week annually. Next year, Knebel said, Alarm.com will likely invite strategic business partners to participate in the week's events.