Learn About Burglar Alarms

Find out more about Alarm Systems

About PET Immune Detectors

Pet immunity is a major concern. The detectors with Pet Immunity cannot function properly after a specific height, and their detection capability will suffer. For the sake of Pet immunity, it is essential that the detectors are configured and installed at proper height as per the instructions are given for installation. The detectors have advanced circuitry to enhance Pet immunity, but it is safer to stick to the installation guidelines. The location of the furniture and the daily movement routines of pets should be studied before installing pet detectors. If detectors are focusing at a lounge where a cat or a dog love to sit in, the detectors will show their movements and may also cause false alarms. Pet immune systems have to be set up with careful thinking, and you cannot afford to keep moving your furniture inside the house frequently. You could also set up reed switches on windows and doors to arm perimeters while pets are at home, and you are out of the house. If pets are outside the house, and you go away somewhere, you could then arm both the perimeter devices and the movement detectors.

About Different Movement Detectors

Standard PIR Movement Detector

Passive Infrared Detectors or PIR can prevent intrusions by detecting of heat in the environment. There are situations when it can cause false alarms by detecting heat movement. Here are some examples:

·         The heat coming from the dishwasher after it was used can trigger the PIR.

·         The air conditioner can also trigger the PIR by producing cold air out and pushes the hot air across the room.

·         A glass window being heated under direct sunlight, which heats the air inside. If a sudden draft comes in, it can push the air across the room and trigger the PIR.  

Quad Movement Detector

The standard Passive Infrared Detectors (PIRs) generally help in detecting environmental heat change. They can create false alarms in specific situations when they detect heat movement. For example, this could happen in three situations:

A)    When the heat rises from a dishwasher after the completion of the washing cycle; it could trigger the passive infrared detector.

B)     When sunlight heats a glass window directly; it will heat the air within. A draft inside the home will push air across to trigger the passive infrared detector.

C)     When an air-conditioner pushes out the cold air; this will also cause hot air mass to build up across a room to trigger the passive infrared detector.

Dual Technology Detector

A Passive Infrared and a Microwave Detector is provided by Tri-Tech. This combination allows emission of microwaves to detect and reflection of changes. This kind of detector is ideal for reduction of false alarms due to both Microwave and PIR sensors to sense an alarm for the main detector alarm system to be triggered.

How many zones for alarms should be considered?

Before installing an alarm system, it is necessary to consider the number of movement detectors, tamper inputs, different devices for alarm and reed switches you would need. You will have to add up all the devices that are required. This total will give you an indication of the maximum zone inputs which will be needed by the alarm panel to supply. It is better to leave a twenty percent redundancy in the zones when you select your alarm panel. For example, if you have ten devices, it is better to select a twelve zone panel so that you keep a buffer for a couple of additional inputs.

There are several homes where windows need separate reed switches that have to be installed but people loop them on the same cable and connect them to the panel in a single zone to save on the cost of not buying an additional panel that matches the right amount of inputs that may be required. Such types of installations should be avoided for the following reasons:

·         To begin with, such installations are not by the Australian standards for the purpose of alarm installation.

·         If you have alarms on an input that is combined, the zoning history will indicate alarms for that zone, and you will not be able to tell exactly the window that was opened. It becomes a challenging task if you are also affected by false alarms on these inputs. It is impossible to determine which door or window reed switch is breaking the contact on an intermittent basis.

·         If you experience a fault in a reed switch or cabling, it is tough to establish the identity and the location of that fault. You will have to pull the whole house apart as all devices would show on the same circuit. It is better to run each cable back to its panel so that every reed switch can then be isolated and it could be tested at its central location.

How many zoning areas do you require? 

All panels that are on sale on this website possess burglar or away areas and an exclusive home area for protection against a home invasion. Zone inputs have to be assigned to those areas, and they have to serve as programmed when the contact opens for a particular zone, and they have to work depending on the area’s state. If an area has been armed in `away’ mode, the sirens would be triggered if any input in that zone is opened. When the area has been placed in `stay’ mode, zones that have been programmed with perimeter reed switches will set off alarm sirens, if opened. At the same time, the movement detectors placed within your house will not trigger an alarm when people are walking around in that area. When an area is disarmed, any zone input could be opened and the alarm system will ignore that. The only occasion when you need to consider multiple areas is when you want a single area of your property to get armed and another area to be disarmed.

With this type of a configuration, you have to assign zones that relate to that area where there is movement. An example of such cases is a home that has a separate area for business and there are employees moving around. It is better to set up two areas and one area would be considered as home and the other area could be termed as office or business. You can have a keypad at the entry of the business area and another keypad for the home entry. Zone inputs that are situated in the home area can get configured and programmed to that particular area and the same applies to the business area. You could also have one keypad installed for multiple areas but you have to ensure that users have been given the authorization to access that particular location of the keypad.

What kinds of monitoring options are available for properties?

When you need to monitor the alarm system in your home, it is important to study your home’s location in relation to your surroundings before you invest in the alarm equipment. Different systems and models on our website would be suitable for different methods of communication. You can consider these important questions,

Is there a router supply with cable broadband to your house?

Is the broadband router given connection to the phone line of copper?

Is there a Telstra connection for the phone line of copper?

Is there a broadband cable router supply to your home where you connect the home phone to that router?

Is there a satellite broadband router?

Is there a wireless broadband router?

Is there an NBN router?

In case of no connections existing or available to your house, these questions are pertinent,

Would you require a GSM dialler?

Would you require GPRS monitoring?

Would you like to monitor an alarm yourself or would you like to entrust that responsibility to a monitoring centre?

If you want to monitor yourself, would you like to get text alarm messages or would you like the alarm to go off your system phones or your mobile phones? Would you like to hear an alarm siren in your earpiece as a form of confirmation that the alarm system is functioning properly?

[A note on the text messaging option would indicate which particular zone has gone into an alarm state. If an intruder breaks in, you would receive a message indicating that the detector in the kitchen alarm has gone off and that the intruder is moving into the living room. You would also receive a message stating that the living room detector has also gone off. You can then make out that it is a genuine alarm and that an intruder is walking from one zone to another. If you enable the option of domestic dialling, you would receive another call with the alarm siren sounding off; but you will not be able to know if it is the same zone or another zone that has gone off.]

Would you like to control and monitor your alarm system with a smart phone application?

Would you like to get email involving alarms?

Would you like to receive SMS of alarms through third party service for text messaging that converts the signals to text?