Home Security Systems Posts

You have demanded it and we have listened to those demands!

We are proud to now offer the L5100PK-5811 wireless security system kit which includes three attractive 5811 wireless door and window sensors instead of the much bigger 5816 wireless sensors that are included in the original L5100PK security system kit. The L5100PK is our most popular security system kit that we offer. However, the biggest complaint that we hear is that people would rather use a nicer looking sensor than the bigger bulkier 5816 sensors that are included in that kit. In the past, people have had to contact us to be able to swap out the 5816s for different sensors. Since the 5811 wireless door and window sensor is our most popular sensor, we decided to make this special kit so that no one will have to make a special request to get the items they would like.

We hope that many people will be happy to see that this kit is now available but if you have any other special kits that you'd like to see offered, please let us know in the comments section below so that we can continue to add the products you need most!

So now that our fearless leader is hitched and I'm not off to any weddings, it's time to return to what I'm sure is everyone's favorite part of Friday: the Owner DIY Blog!

As I introduced in my blog post two weeks ago, I have a Honeywell LYNX L5100  system installed in my home. But it didn't just install itself. I'm here to document how we did it!

So a little background on my house. Like many people in Florida who hate putting up shutters on their second floor, I have high impact Hurricane windows and doors.  

And I don't just have them. I have a LOT of them. Being an older, remodeled home, I have them in all shapes and sizes. French doors, sliding glass doors, and way too many windows.

So when it came time to designing my security system, we had to put a lot of thought into picking the right door and window sensors.

First, let's consider the windows. There's a ton of them and clearly we want to protect that method of entry. 

Since there's over 40 of them (many of the windows are double-hung and multiple panels per opening), we had to rule out wireless window sensors. Even at those affordable Alarm Grid prices, they're unrealistic in that quantity.

We couldn't even use glass break detectors. Impact glass functions a lot like bullet proof glass. It won't shatter and set off the detectors.

So we settled on a few motion detectors placed cleverly throughout the house. Luckily since my manly 9 pound Shih Tzu just squeezes under the 80 lb limit of the Honeywell 5800PIR-RES, the choice of which one to use was obvious.

Need help installing yours? We have a great Honeywell 5800PIR-RES installation video.

With three of those placed in rooms with entryways and hallways outside the rest of the rooms, it was time to move on to the doors. Oh the many doors.

Since I'm a snob, I knew the standard and popular Honeywell 5816 just wasn't thin enough for me. I needed the slightly more expensive, but way more discreet Honeywell 5811.

For the many sliding glass doors, I needed to install two door sensors per door because the doors could open from either direction. Looking for help? We have a great video showing how to install door sensors on a sliding glass door.

For the French doors / double front door? Luckily, one side was a dummy / passive door that locked into the frame. We were able to get away with just one sensor on the active side. Again, we have a great French door installation video for the 5811.

Any questions or concerns on how to design your security system? Next up we'll go over some of the cool stuff we did with Z-Wave. 

Much like those cheesy Hair Club for Men commercials of the 90s, I'm proud to say, I'm not just one of the founders of Alarm Grid, I'm also a client!

In case you're wondering, yes, I even pay the same as everyone else!  Alarm Grid's prices are already so low, I gladly pay the same monitoring prices.

So, every week I'd like to highlight a different aspect of my alarm system I love and hopefully cover some cool features you might not even know you have!

First, some background.  Like most of you, I don't come from an alarm background.  This system?  The first one I've ever installed.

My previous house already had a Brinks system installed.  So I, like many people, just paid a silly amount to activate the thing and never even realized the cool stuff that was out there.  It was literally a fixed panel with 3 sensors that I paid close to $40 a month for.  What a silly waste!

So, of course, when I moved into my current house, I called up the usual big guys.  They came out, quoted astronomical prices to cover my home's many openings (4 sliding glass doors each requiring two sensors were just the beginning!) and required long term contracts.

After paying enough early termination fees in my life, I decided to make the unfortunate choice of just putting off my alarm system.  That's never an acceptable solution.

Luckily, I soon discovered the Honeywell L5100 and Total Connect 2.0.  It was love at first site.

A panel that required NO wires (except for its power supply) and offered remote control and  Z-Wave?  As a huge gadget geek that always tried and failed to wire smart homes in the past, I knew I met the panel of my dreams.

Now finding the service?  That was obviously an even easier decision for me.  And hopefully after you meet our amazing staff and learn about our incredible service, it will be an easy choice for you.

So stick with me over the coming weeks and learn about my security system and the cool stuff I'm doing every Friday.  

We're always striving to give you the best, most pleasant shopping experience we can possibly give you. And it's no small feat. We're a really small team, and a pretty new company, and so any time we can beat the big guys, and present you with something that we think is bigger and better, we are proud of it. We believe our alarm monitoring  plans are the best in the industry. We believe that our site is the most pleasant to shop on in the industry, and we deeply appreciate the many customers that have given us the privilege of serving them over the last 6 months. And now, I think we can say that our site is one of the fastest loading sites in the industry. Give it a try, click around, see if you agree.

I'm proud to announce that Alarm Grid was invited into the beta version of  Google Page Speed service for SSL sites. We're not sure how many other sites are in the program, but we know that it has significantly improved our site's speed, and we're honored that Google thought we would be a good candidate to beta test the page speed service. We're loving it so far, and we hope that you find it to be a significant improvement to your shopping experience (let us know what you think in the comments). If you're curious about what Google Page Speed is exactly... watch the video below.

For the less geeky among us, what this partnership means is that Alarm Grid will always be incredibly fast - faster than almost any site you've ever been on, and certainly faster than most (if not all) sites in the home security industry. We know that your time is valuable. We also know that people love doing research on home security systems on Alarm Grid. Doing research is time consuming, and a slow site can only make that process disgustingly difficult. We've all been there, annoyed by the 5 to 15 second load times of even the internet's most popular sites.

We have a lot of goals at Alarm Grid that we are working on making realities. As we move closer to meeting each goal, your experience with us will improve. One of our site goals it to make sure that EVERY page loads in less than 1 second, even on your mobile devices. We're not quite there yet, but we're so close. According to Pingdom's page speed test tool our homepage load time is between one and two seconds and our taxon pages are between two and three. So we're not there yet, but we will be soon. For the time being, I guess you'll just have to deal with load times between one and three seconds. We're sorry for wasting even that small amount of time. We hope you'll forgive us ;).

Just for fun, if you want to see how much faster the new site loads than the old site...

Here at Alarm Grid, we know first hand how effective a security system can be. There is nothing more rewarding than getting a call or email from a new customer telling us about a successful apprehension or a thwarted burglary.

However, it's also nice to have some statistical proof that burglar alarms really do prevent burglaries. We just read about a recent study conducted in three different Pennsylvania suburbs that concluded that homes with a security system installed had 1.4% chance of burglary. The homes without a security system in those same suburbs had a 2.3% chance of burglary. Aside from the conclusion that Pennsylvania suburbs appear to be pretty safe, it's clear the security systems are helping. The study did not look at the differences between security systems that are monitored by a central station and security systems that are not monitored. I would be willing to bet that homes with a monitored security system have virtually no chance of being burglarized.

Another interesting finding from the same study, was that businesses in the same Pennsylvania suburbs had much higher likelihood of burglary. The businesses with a security system had a 4.2% chance of burglary, while the businesses without a security system had an 18.2% chance of burglary. We find it very interesting that businesses in these areas seem to benefit even more than homes from having an installed security system.

The L5100PK LYNX Touch wireless security system is a great fit for a home or a business so if you have a business that is not protected now, please call us today at 888-818-7728 to speak with a security expert that can help you design the perfect Honeywell security system for your business.

The Honeywell L5100PK-WIFI-4G is the perfect choice for anyone that wants the most secure and reliable alarm monitoring communications available. In the past, Honeywell did not have an option for dual path alarm monitoring using the wireless all-in-one LYNX Series alarm control panels. There was no dual path alarm communicator compatible with the LYNX Series alarm control panels and you could not install both an internet alarm communicator and cellular alarm communicator inside a single LYNX system. Therefore, you had to choose between the faster, less expensive internet communications and the more reliable cellular communications. This was a disadvantage of the easier to install LYNX Series wireless alarm control panels and forced people over to the VISTA Series alarm control panels which were compatible with the discontinued 7845-iGSM and the iGSMV dual path alarm communicators.  

Now however, with the Honeywell L5100 LYNX Touch system, you can use the L5100-WIFI internet communicator in conjunction with the GSMVLP5-4G cellular communicator for a true dual path alarm monitoring option using a LYNX Series wireless alarm control panel. If the internet connection ever goes down (due to a power outage or service interruption), the system will switch over to the GSMVLP5-4G and your alarm signals will go out over the AT&T cellular network. 

The L5100PK-WIFI-4G includes the same (3) 5816 wireless door and window contacts, 5800PIR-RES wireless motion detector and 5834-4 wireless key fob that are included in the L5100PK LYNX Touch security system kit, but it also comes with the L5100-WIFI and GSMVLP5-4G AlarmNet communicators so you can get the peace of mind that only dual path alarm monitoring can provide.