Friends,
How is the monitoring service of eyez-on?? did any one tried? Howz their response when the alarm is on??
Thks.
magik,
If you have a look in the DSC alarm plugin subforum:
There have been a few posts discussing their service. Strangely was the one who talked about it.
- Garrett
I’ve had it for about 6 months now. It’s been working great and I have had some false alarms to test them (dogs tripping motion until I got it set right) and a low temperature warning. They’ve been very quick to call and very professional. They were a bit slow at setting up the account … about a week if I remember correctly. I do recommend them.
-GT
Yep, had it for about a year now also and still regularly test it out by accident… today included after a particularly bad week at work 
Anyway, my renewal is coming up again soon, and I will be signing up again for another year.
Can their service be used to automatically call the police if a security alarm goes off? Sorry for what might be a silly question but I’m trying to understand how a “DIY” security system differs from the packaged ones that come with monitoring.
Yes, their service is a monitoring service. Just like any other monitoring service for alarm systems, they will call the appropriate authorities.
- Garrett
Since last year, is there any update on the service quality for EyezOn monitoring?
How’s their response time to an alarm?
Do they still have UL-C certification?
Overall would you recommend it?
I’ve had them for almost two years, and I’m happy with their response time. I’ve tripped the normal alarm by mistake, and even the fire alarm with a cooking accident.
They have always been nice when speaking on the phone.
Thank you for your experience update for EnvisAlarms service. I seem to have hard time finding recent “positive” user reviews with this service. When they first launched their alarm monitoring service couple years ago there seem to have been some initial “glitches” as expected (some people questioned their UL certification and complained they have not received the UL certification in the mail, other posts showed some delays or inconsistencies with alarm monitoring service responses), but i can’t verify if these problems and concerns have been addressed. EVL staff were more active in their alarm monitoring forums couple years ago, but i can’t see as frequent posts lately which made me wonder if their service is going down.
So far from what I can gather reading the forums, “DSC Power series + Vera + EVL3 + EyesON monitoring” is one of the best integrated IP monitored alarm system that integrates well with Micasa Verde VERA. Honeywell Vista alarm panel with AD2USB and/or EVL3 is a close second option.
All newer/more modenr alarm systems such as “DSC Neo PowerG” or “Honeywell Lynx” with more modern hardware features are locked in to specific vendors, and can not be used with VERA or cheaper alarm monitoring services such as alarmrelay.com or EyezON EnvisAlarms service.
You don’t have to use EyezOn just because you have the EVL3.
I still use my old monitoring company and use the EVL3 to integrate into the vera and send me alerts directly.
Yea i like to isolate life/family/property protection from the quirkiness of vera. I have used geoarm for years. Let’s you use native alarm monitoring (in my case ethernet/cell) while still having flexibility of vera integration. Geoarm 's rates are great and they are very professional /responsive. UL/etc certified as well.
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[quote=“libby2cm, post:11, topic:174441”]Yea i like to isolate life/family/property protection from the quirkiness of vera. I have used geoarm for years. Let’s you use native alarm monitoring (in my case ethernet/cell) while still having flexibility of vera integration. Geoarm 's rates are great and they are very professional /responsive. UL/etc certified as well.
Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk[/quote]
If I’m not mistaken (just set up my system, working on getting the account with Eyezon now), there isn’t any involvement with Vera as far as the monitoring is concerned. The EVL3 connects to the internet and makes the requisite contact needed to engage the monitoring team. Whether you decide to involve Vera in alarms is a different story, but it’s quirkiness shouldn’t be a concern.
Yes, in this case my focus is not quirkiness of Vera unit (that’s a whole different thread matter).
EVL-3 can function fine with DSC panel withou relying on VERA (which is a great thing that it doesn’t need Vera to operate).
The concern, based on what I have been reading so far, EyezOn EVL3 is relatively new in offering alarm monitoring service and they do this through a third party monitoring service that is based in Canada (CML Consolidated Monitoring Limited). Canada is CML’s primary market. Some have indicated call center workers speak French primarily. Now just the fact that they’re outside USA can introduce some quirkiness in the way they respond to alarms, and may make it even more difficult when another language (french) gets in the way.
If there’s an alarm, how long do they take to respond, or do they ignore?
Are they able to dispatch local police properly to respond to an alarm?
Are they consistent and reliable?
Personally, I’m not a believer of self monitoring, you could be in a flight, or in a meeting, on the beach, out of touch for hours and by the time you realize and respond to an alarm, the whole crime would have been done and over with long ago, waaay too late for you to report anything. There’s a value in monitoring service, but traditional alarm companies take you to cleaners with their exuberant outdated business model from 1980s and they want to charge extras to all other functions which most of on this forum are reasonable capable of accomplishing with Vera.
Primarily all I want from my alarm system and VERA is when I enter my user pin at deadbolt door lock, I want the alarm system to disarm without having me to enter additional another pin on the alarm panel, and I’m not gonna pay close to $50/month to a monitoring service like ADT or Honeywell to accomplish that.
Another thing I’d like to be able to do with the VERA-DSC-EVL3 combo is when I arm the alarm system through the alarm panel, I want VERA to be aware of it, so VERA can power on couple webcams inside the home and when motion is detected those webcams can immediately upload to an FTP server on internet (or both local and internet). Hope this is a reasonably smart thing to do that most can appreciate the idea.
This is part of my overall plan. I have the Vera-DSC integration in place, I’m implementing Blue Iris tied to Vera and gradually adding cameras outside and in select locations inside. BI brings some interesting capabilities for camera groups that will allow including inside cameras only when a) the alarm is set and b) no one is home for example. Combined with the new Unofficial BI plug in and some of the planned features of that should make this a piece of cake.
I think what most people don’t realize is there are usually many monitoring companies available in your area that can monitor your alarm for usually much less than the big companies.
You just have to do a little searching, a little asking around and you can probably find one for at least half of what you would pay to ADT or even less…
[quote=“JohnN”][quote=“libby2cm, post:11, topic:174441”]Yea i like to isolate life/family/property protection from the quirkiness of vera. I have used geoarm for years. Let’s you use native alarm monitoring (in my case ethernet/cell) while still having flexibility of vera integration. Geoarm 's rates are great and they are very professional /responsive. UL/etc certified as well.
Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk[/quote]
If I’m not mistaken (just set up my system, working on getting the account with Eyezon now), there isn’t any involvement with Vera as far as the monitoring is concerned. The EVL3 connects to the internet and makes the requisite contact needed to engage the monitoring team. Whether you decide to involve Vera in alarms is a different story, but it’s quirkiness shouldn’t be a concern.[/quote]
True, but im leary of relying aftermarket equipment for monitoring. I prefer to use oem communicators and services (e.g. Honeywell alarmnet) for monitoring. For monitoring itself I recommend geoarm. Great company, great rates.
Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk
[quote=“ibmford”]Yes, in this case my focus is not quirkiness of Vera unit (that’s a whole different thread matter).
EVL-3 can function fine with DSC panel withou relying on VERA (which is a great thing that it doesn’t need Vera to operate).
The concern, based on what I have been reading so far, EyezOn EVL3 is relatively new in offering alarm monitoring service and they do this through a third party monitoring service that is based in Canada (CML Consolidated Monitoring Limited). Canada is CML’s primary market. Some have indicated call center workers speak French primarily. Now just the fact that they’re outside USA can introduce some quirkiness in the way they respond to alarms, and may make it even more difficult when another language (french) gets in the way.
If there’s an alarm, how long do they take to respond, or do they ignore?
Are they able to dispatch local police properly to respond to an alarm?
Are they consistent and reliable?
Personally, I’m not a believer of self monitoring, you could be in a flight, or in a meeting, on the beach, out of touch for hours and by the time you realize and respond to an alarm, the whole crime would have been done and over with long ago, waaay too late for you to report anything. There’s a value in monitoring service, but traditional alarm companies take you to cleaners with their exuberant outdated business model from 1980s and they want to charge extras to all other functions which most of on this forum are reasonable capable of accomplishing with Vera.
Primarily all I want from my alarm system and VERA is when I enter my user pin at deadbolt door lock, I want the alarm system to disarm without having me to enter additional another pin on the alarm panel, and I’m not gonna pay close to $50/month to a monitoring service like ADT or Honeywell to accomplish that.[/quote]
If you just want to disarm alarm with a door pin or just self monitor, all you need is either ev3 or ad2usb… but I always use those features in parallel to true monitoring.
Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk
[quote=“prim8”]I think what most people don’t realize is there are usually many monitoring companies available in your area that can monitor your alarm for usually much less than the big companies.
You just have to do a little searching, a little asking around and you can probably find one for at least half of what you would pay to ADT or even less…[/quote]
Yes… geoarm… much cheaper than adt. And that’s me coming from a 2 generation adt family
Geoarm uses oem monitoring (e.g. alarmnet) as well as aftermarket communicators. I prefer to use oem ip monitoring with cell backup with geoarm via alarmnet. I can even use compass to program panel without having to use keypad… very handy.
Ip/gsm monitoring thru geoarm is only ~$20/mo, even less with a multi year contract. Multi year contract is no brainer bc geoarm supports monitoring about any system out there with nearly any method. So you have option to switch from say Honeywell to ge down the road without breaking contract.
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