Those of us that are working on development of the web portal take some things for granted just because we figured this is the way it should be. We are finding out that some of our competitors do things differently, and in some cases not as well. Therefore this page is dedicated to answering questions that we initially thought were silly, but apparently our competition might not want to see our answers.

Q: How soon will I find out if there is an alarm at my remote site?

A: As close to “right away” as cell phone coverage (or Internet if wired) will allow. The most important purpose served by the periodic reporting is just to confirm that the remote monitoring device is still monitoring, even if there is nothing new to report. If the remote device does not report in on schedule, the server will generate its own notification about this fact. If an alert condition is detected by the remote device, it will “pick up the phone” immediately and call the server. The server will in turn send emails, text messages, or make voice calls as configured by you.

Q: How often does the remote device perform a periodic call?

A: We normally configure the cellular devices to call in every 6 hours. Wired devices can “call in” more frequently with no additional cost incurred. Our system is optimized for remote alarm monitoring, and most alarm monitoring applications will be well served with our combination of 6-hour periodic reports plus on-demand alert notifications.

If you have a need to get periodic reports more frequently than every 6 hours, simply ask us for a quote. Air time is billed by data volume. At the extreme upper limit, calling in about every 2 minutes would cost roughly $200/month in air time and accumulate roughly 30MB of data. If you really need to log this much data via wireless, please contact us regarding alternative architectures we can make available.

Q: Why can't I just press a button on my phone to acknowledge the alert when I get the voice alert phone call?

A: Because we are confident that at least some people can press buttons in their sleep. The system is capable of recognizing touch tone buttons, but we specifically disregard them. You have to log into the web portal to acknowledge the alert. We want to force you to actually get out of bed to stop the phone from ringing in the middle of the night (unless you sleep with your iPhone under your pillow).

Although by default we deliberately do not acknowledge alarms via DTMF on your touch tone phone, some customers have asked if it was possible since their service technicians may be a long way from Internet in the field. YES, it is possible, the telephone system we use is capable of interacting using DTMF. In fact, it will support an entire "press 1 for..., press 2 for..." menu. It is possible, but making sure it was not possible was also originally one customer's requirement at the time we first implemented voice. This customer noted that people ignore email and text messages while sleeping, and wanted to make certain somebody would get awakened in the middle of the night if needed. Making it more difficult to ignore the call in the middle of the night was the goal.

Send us your questions. If our competition wouldn't like the answer, we'll be sure to post it right here!