Vivint Live: personal touch monitoring; Vivint president takes on solar CEO duties

Two recent developments from home automation/home security giant Vivint caught my eye. One is a new feature for homeowners called Vivint Live, which the company said links customers directly to a monitoring professional and helps reduce false alarms. The other is that Alex Dunn, who just recently became president of Vivint, is also now interim CEO for Vivint Solar.

Provo, Utah-based Vivint announced today that with Vivint Live, its customers can now use their touchscreen panels to communicate directly with a monitoring professional in the event of an alarm.

Here's what the company had to say:

When an alarm is triggered, the signal is sent to Vivint's award-winning monitoring center, which is staffed 24 hours a day throughout the year. Upon receiving the alarm, a Vivint in-house monitoring professional speaks to the customer through the touchscreen panel. Acting as a first responder, the agent assesses the situation, confirms an emergency with the customer, and dispatches emergency personnel accordingly. With Vivint Live, homeowners have the personal, immediate response they need to work through any emergency situation and receive necessary care. …

… Vivint Live's quick response also allows Vivint to decrease the number of false alarms. Vivint monitoring professionals connect directly with the customer and then dispatch emergency personnel only during a legitimate emergency or when the customer cannot be reached.

In other news, the company also announced yesterday that Tanguy Serra has stepped down as CEO of Vivint Solar and that Dunn is now interim CEO. Serra said in a statement that it's time for him to step away from day-to-day operations but that he still will be involved as an advisor to the company.

Vivint Solar, a company that Vivint created in 2011, is one of the fastest-growing residential solar power provider in the North America.

Dunn said in a statement: “Tanguy has helped us build an amazing business, and we are grateful for all of his hard work and dedication. Vivint Solar is what it is today because of his leadership. We are committed to expanding upon the foundation that he has built, and believe our solar solution to be a critical component to helping our customers save money and gain energy independence.”