End user-focused alert solution looks to cut out professional monitoring

LOS ANGELES—A new end user-focused security solution running with the tagline, “See inside your home with unlimited, FREE alarm monitoring,” looks to neatly remove professional monitoring services from the home security equation, saving end users money, while potentially eating into dealer and central station RMR.

Attikis, which is in beta testing right now, is a managed service and, according to its website, is free. The only cost end users will incur is a per-call charge when the service alerts end users through phone calls, text messages and emails of an alarm.

“Attikis' low cost, prepaid service provides a low-obligation, low-risk entry point for the mass market of homeowners and occupiers to monitor their homes while they work, rest and live,” said Attikis founder and president Jarryd Winters. “Traditional monitoring stations have focused on 'full-service' offerings with expensive lock-in contracts … Attikis has reinvented the monitoring station with a prepaid service at a fraction of the price other operators charge.”

Winters said only one in three homes with alarms has professional monitoring.

“Most alarm systems will only support one monitoring service at a time. Attikis is predominantly targeted toward users who have an alarm system today but no monitoring,” Winters said. “It offers these customers a really cost-effective way to start monitoring their homes without the hassles of expensive contracts.”

The company's website breaks the prepaid expenses down, claiming, “$10 is more than one year monitoring for an average home user, based on 10 triggered alarms per year calling six contacts for each alarm (10 x 6 x $.15 = $9).”

But don't most professional central stations offer services like Attikis offers already?

“We can do it, but we don't market to end users. And the professional installer looks at this like competition,” said Mace CSSS vice president of operations Morgan Hertel. “But I do believe that there is room for both, and we can provide such a service when the dealer wants to sell it.”

Winters insists Attikis will give end users more value than the traditional central station can offer.

“One telephone call to the head of the house is not enough to stop the kids from walking in on an intruder,” Winters said. “Attikis has focused on improving communication paths and response rules … Some large monitoring centers average 13 minutes to respond—and 20 minutes in peak times … Attikis sends alerts in seconds.”

Is there an opportunity here for security dealers to purchase Attikis as an add-on service to professional monitoring?

“In the sense that Attikis offers many features which most professional monitoring stations do not offer today, there is a viable opportunity for security dealers to pitch Attikis to their customers,” Winters said. “That said, it is most likely customers will choose to use Attikis as a substitute for professional monitoring.”

So is it time for monitoring centers to start worrying?

“It's still early days for Attikis, we have only opened to the public in the last two months and have brought on customers gradually to make sure we could handle their load,” Winters said. “And 2011 is looking to be a big year for Attikis already. In the few weeks that have passed so far, we have more than doubled the number of users of Attikis, released our new Web Interface, which is great to use on a widescreen and scales to be useable on a smart phone, and are consistently meeting our 100 percent uptime target for monitoring services.”

Attikis has offices in the U.S., Australia and Poland.