Does Alarm Monitoring Cost More if I Add Partitions?

No, alarm monitoring does not cost more if you add partitions. The ability to set up and use partitions is a feature built within an alarm system. Whether or not use partitioning will not affect the cost of your monitoring service. Only systems that support partitioning can use the feature.

Partitioning refers to the ability to "section-off" an alarm system. Each section is thereby referred to as a "partition". Each partition can be Armed and Disarmed individually, regardless of whether other partitions are Armed or Disarmed. You can assign different user codes to different partition. This allows you to manage which sections of the system end users can control. Partitioning is great for use in offices, shared livings spaces, and other locations where you may not want end users to control the entire security system.

When you program sensors to a partitioned system, you will assign it to a partition. When the associated partition is Armed, that zone will be secured, and it will be able to cause an alarm on the system. Likewise, when the associated partition is Disarmed, then the zone will be unsecured. An unsecured zone can only cause an alarm on a system if it is a 24-hour zone type. In essence, partitioning can also be seen as an easy and fast way to bypass multiple zones all at once, without having to bypass these zones individually.

As partitioning is a feature within an alarm system, using partitioning does not affect the cost of monitoring service. You can use partitioning with any of our monitoring plans. It is also technically possible to use partitioning with an unmonitored system. Just be aware that an unmonitored system will only serve as a local sounder, and it will not be able to report out during alarm events. But in order to use partitioning, you must have a system that supports the feature. Some systems that support partitioning include the Qolsys IQ Panel 2 Plus, the 2GIG GC3e, the 2GIG GC3, the Honeywell VISTA 20P, and the Honeywell VISTA 21iP.