MONI introduces ASAPer

DALLAS—ASAPer, MONI Smart Security's latest monitoring offering, will allow alarm users and their emergency contacts to quickly communicate and determine the validity of an alarm.

“We really wanted to have a central communication hub whether the customer—the subscriber—could easily communicate with our monitoring facility, as well as communicate with their emergency contacts,” Grant Graham, MONI's director of monitoring operations, told Security Systems News. “Any device that can open a web browser will work with ASAPer.”

ASAPer opens a chat room that gives the user the ability to inform the monitoring center if the alarm is false or an actual alarm. One button will confirm that the alarm is real and connect the customer with the monitoring center to provide additional information while another button marks the alarm as false.

MONI will offer this service for free in addition to traditional call verification, Graham said. The chat room will also receive updates on where the alarm is in its handling at the monitoring center, including whether a dispatch has been made or if the operator has spoken with one of the contacts. “In our opinion, that really delivers incredible comfort to the customer,” Graham said.

ASAPer was originally developed through LiveWatch, a company that MONI purchased in February 2015. LiveWatch offers professional monitoring with DIY installed products.

The company has been working to integrate it with MONI's monitoring center for about a year, Graham said. “We knew it was a powerful product because of what LiveWatch was doing with it. We knew that it could definitely add value to the services that we're already offering to our clients.” Graham said that LiveWatch customers have been pleased with the service and it's one of the company's main offerings.

“The primary benefit is it's an added service to our customers and, in our opinion, it's a differentiator in the marketplace compared to what other alarm companies are doing,” Graham said. MONI could incorporate more modes of communication with the company in the future, he added.