EMERgency24 offers 'filtered monitoring'

DES PLAINES, Ill.—Offering “filtered monitoring” has helped third party central EMERgency24 expand its video options for dealers, according to Kevin Lehan, company PR manager.

“Filtered monitoring places part of the responsibility of the decision to dispatch on the end user,” Lehan told Security Systems News. End users review video surveillance activity through their smartphone before sending it to central station operators,. This allows the building owner to weed out false alarms, such as a plastic bag or neighborhood cat tripping the image sensor, he said.

EMERgency24 can offer this service for $4 per month because of the decreased workload on the stations' dispatchers, according to Lehan. “The sheer cost of having exterior video monitoring has priced it out for most households,” he said. “This now allows alarm dealers to offer a very affordable exterior video option.”

“Filtered-response monitoring service was developed as a separate system and application built by our in-house engineers to work with our proprietary software that operates our five networked central stations across the United States,” said Lehan. EMERgency24 started offering the service in fall 2015, he said.

While filtered monitoring is mainly a residential offering, it also has applications in the commercial space, Lehan said.

Lehan declined to release figures on how many accounts they've added through this service, but said, “It has been a welcomed addition to many residential accounts, as well as commercial. It is another way for dealers to add RMR to existing or new accounts.”

Filtered-response monitoring works well with hardware from Videofied and other manufacturers, Lehan said.