Hi Everyone! I just moved into my new home a couple weeks ago, the home is just a couple years old and the previous owners used a local alarm company to install a system monitored through alarm.com. I reached out to the local alarm company about transferring service to me and they sent me a contract to sign for $45/month for 3 years, this would include 24/7 monitoring. They told me if I don’t want monitoring it will be about half that.
Not feeling too comfortable about signing a contract to pay them for 3 straight years, I decided to do a little reading and research on alternative options. A lot of people love Surety, I’ve been impressed with how straightforward and easy to understand this website is. My biggest concern is whether or not my existing equipment/infrastructure will be compatible with proceeding with Surety or if it will be a headache of work to get transferred.
Disclaimer: I am fairly tech savvy, but up until a couple weeks ago I knew absolutely nothing about home security systems. I have done my best to educate myself these last couple weeks.
There are 2 touchscreen alarm keypads in the home, model HS2TCHP, seen in the below link:
In addition, there are 2 alarm.com smart thermostats in the home, model ADC-T40-HD:
The alarm system contains 3 door sensors, 2 motion sensors, and also 3 hardwired smoke detectors.
Some other information, the alarm system is registered to the previous owner of the home, they did leave me their login information for their alarm.com account. I am not entirely sure how easy it would be to get the system transferred over to my new account. I feel like that may be a sticking point here as well.
Any advice or thoughts on my situation would be greatly appreciated, thank you in advance.
Based on the inclusion of the HS2TCHP keypads, it appears you are using the DSC Power Series NEO alarm panel, correct? That panel is compatible with Alarm.com and service through Surety. You can find the panels we support below:
Based on the devices in use, the Surety Home service plan would best suit your needs. You can view service plan features and pricing here:
Some other information, the alarm system is registered to the previous owner of the home,
In order to sign up for new service with Surety the panel (specifically the 4G LTE module) would need to be unregistered in order to be used. This typically requires the existing account to be cancelled. This likely needs to be done by the account holder. You may need to reach out to the service provider for more information.
If the module cannot be released, it would need to be replaced with an unregistered module.
Transfer may be possible if you are the account holder and the current service provider supports it.
More information on transferring your account can be found here. Not all service providers support account transfers, you will want to find out from your current service provider if they will support it. If they do, follow the steps in the previous link. Transferring will allow you to keep your current Alarm.com account settings (rules, scenes, notifications, etc.).
Thank you for the detailed reply. Yes it is a DSC Power Series NEO alarm panel.
While it sounds like being able to transfer the account would be easiest, I am doubtful I’ll be able to do that because the account holder is still the previous owner of my home. They did give me their alarm.com login information and I did access it and change the password, so while the previous owner is technically the account holder, they do not have access to the system.
It sounds like I need to contact the local alarm company again and talk through my options. The 3 year contract is a deal breaker for me, so I would like to get this setup through Surety. If I’m understanding correctly, the path to do that would be contacting the local alarm company, asking them to cancel the previous owners account and unregister all devices. Once that has occurred, I can sign up through Surety and get the devices registered to my newly created account. Am I correct?
Since everything is already installed and wired, would there be much work on my end once I have a Surety account signed up and registered? Would it remember all of the motion sensors, door sensors, and smoke detectors or would I need to somehow program that in to the system?
Once that has occurred, I can sign up through Surety and get the devices registered to my newly created account. Am I correct
The panel needs to be unregistered as a 4G LTE module can only be associated with one Alarm.com account at a time.
Would it remember all of the motion sensors, door sensors, and smoke detectors or would I need to somehow program that in to the system?
Typically cancelling service does not impact local panel programming, it just cancels the existing Alarm.com account deleting any automation rules, scenes, notifications, etc. It shouldn’t remove sensors/devices from programming. You can confirm through the current service provider.