Why Suretydiy

Trying to make sense among DIY alarm.com dealers. So far I see:

Can you explain why you are better than say alarmgrid or geoarm? One thing I really like about suretydiy.com is the forum and the responsiveness. But I can’t figure out (yet) why to choose one service vs. the other. If you could give me your pitch compare to other “DIY” alarm.com providers it would really help.

Thank you.

suretyDIY is an Alarm.com Interactive services dealer. We specialize in and work closely with Alarm.com to provide the very best service and support for DIYers who are interested in security and home automation capabilities they can customize to meet their personal needs.

Can you explain why you are better than say alarmgrid or geoarm?

I’ve not used their service and could not possibly give an objective answer to this type of question. This is for the end-user to decide. :slight_smile:

Since all of our service offerings are month to month, it’s easy to try and compare.

What are you looking for in a provider? What features or services are you interested in? I’d be happy to help and discuss!

I am a SuretyDIY customer. I chose them originally based solely on price. They were the cheapest. ADC service and central station monitoring are basically commoditized at this point.

I did a quick compare against the other two you listed. For a median service level (“Gold interactive with central station”):

The comparison might change depending on which features are important to you.

The reason I’ve stayed with Surety is that they provide good service, despite being the cheapest. This forum is a great resource, but you can still use it if you are not a subscriber.

Thanks Warren and Ben.

  1. What is “ADC” in the context of “ADC service and central station monitoring”?

  2. Would the price be the only difference then?

Alarm Dot Com

Would the price be the only difference then?

For the system features and operation, yes. All are providers for the same Alarm.com service.

For the central station - presumably yes, but I don’t know anything about alarmgrid or geoarm. I suppose it would be possible to provide unreliable central station monitoring. We know Surety is a competent central station provider. You would want to do your homework with the others.

When you’re doing DIY the service and support is important. No matter how competent you are, something will go wrong. The Surety team provides excellent support as demonstrated in these forums. I can’t speak for the other two providers. This would probably be the main possible differentiator besides price.

great, thank you

I chose Surety Cam because of the price and the fact that they have a forum. They specialize in ADC and a lot of my local dealers had ADC, but it wasn’t their main focus.

I run my system to the max. Tons of automation. Surety Cam doesn’t shy away from users like this.

The most important reason you want to go with Surety Cam is because they have a strong relationship with ADC. I am not the biggest fan of ADC’s response time and aggressiveness to resolve issues, but I have not found a similar company that does better. I do believe ADC is one of the better companies out there and they certainly have to most features and add more all the time.

When I was with my old company, I paid a lot more for service and if I had a problem, ADC would often not get back to them. They seem to get back to Surety a lot more. Probably because they have so many customers with them.

I would LOVE to talk to a live person or even onscreen chat, so the forums seem like a “slow down” (especially when I am on the West Coast and Surety is on the East), but Surety is very very responsive to the forums and I have almost been able to resolve every issue via this process.

Surety has addressed every single one of my issues and if there has been lack of follow up, it has been because of ADC.

For the price, I don’t think there is better than Surety Cam. I know I post a lot, but I think it is important to hear from someone that has lots of interaction and complex issues so that you can be assured that more routine (75% of the time) issues are handled easily.

I know I post a lot, but I think it is important to hear from someone that has lots of interaction and complex issues so that you can be assured that more routine (75% of the time) issues are handled easily.

We like a lot of posts! :slight_smile: We expect DIYers to provide more complex concerns, and true to expectation most of the questions that come up are complex and require a lot of testing and multimedia support. We’ve found the forum to be the best way of handling this.

Thank you for the kind words. We will keep working to bring the best service available.

I initially chose SuretyDIY because of their competitive prices and this forum. I have stayed with them, and brought a family member to them, for the same reasons. This is without question the best 2GIG forum available on the internet and I will continue to support SuretyDIY because of the effort they put into helping existing and potential customers. With that said, if 2GIG or Linear read this forum you should really consider doing what you can to support these people. I’m sure they don’t do anywhere near the same volume of business as the more traditional full service alarm companies but what they do is provide superb service and help build a good name for YOU by showing people what is possible with your equipment. They also support customers when they have quesions and don’t rip them off when doing so — and you know what I’m talking about here. The internet is full of horror stories regarding some of the other companies but these folks are doing a great job. DIY/no contract is the future of the alarm industry and it would serve you well to pay attention.

DIY/no contract is the future of the alarm industry

I wholeheartedly agree.

Thank you for your support!

I am new to DIY approach to alarm.com and am liking it! alarmgrid is very similar to suretydiy (i believe) BUT they have technical staff who can work with you over the phone if you need to call for help (I believe suretydiy only does forums, correct me if i’m wrong). I agree on the price that suretydiy is the most reasonable for what you get.

Our forum method of providing tech support is one of our biggest differentiators. It’s catered toward those who like to do everything online which tends to be more effective and efficient. On our forum you get help directly from top tier experienced technicians whereas with 1 on 1 phone tech support you often deal with less experienced call center operators who follow support scripts.

Alarmgrid does not seem to have a forum. One of the reasons I chose Surety is because of the forum. Most issues are not life and death and many topics are about how to do non critical things (e.g. automating a light or learning more about my system). I find that the lack of a forum is a big deal and SuretyCam has the best forum on the internet.

However, if I were to have a critical issue (e.g. I have to arm my system and could not and needed someone quickly to resolve), the lack of a chat or person to talk to on the phone could be an issue.

SuretyCam would be perfect if they would offer this option as they used to.

Reading through the forums, I dont feel they get an overwhelming amount of support issues a day.

As product differentiation and pricing become more and more the same, the only way companies really can differentiate is with service.

I feel that SureyCam has an opportunity to differentiate even further by offering chat or phone support and be the only DIY themed company that offers it ALL

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However, if I were to have a critical issue (e.g. I have to arm my system and could not and needed someone quickly to resolve

We do not have access to arm/disarm your system :wink:

I feel that SureyCam has an opportunity to differentiate even further by offering chat or phone support and be the only DIY themed company that offers it ALL

We are always happy to take user suggestions!

Should you need to send us sensitive information or make an account change request, the best way to do so is to submit a secure message to our team through our website.

We are constantly working to provide more direct access to all of our services and features through the website as well.

what I meant is if there was a technical problem that made it so I could not arm disarm or a critical sensor was not working and I had to go away on vacation…something like that

I also find the central monitoring service best in class

I have done some research and it seems that this service (SuretyDIY) is the best in all any/all areas of D.I.Y. security. A very comfortable service to work with and expand with. I am so satisfied that I am getting one for our step-daughters house so I can cash in on the 12% insurance discount. I also found that 2GIG seems to be the best in regards to ease of operating and programing and expanding. Their products are reasonably priced and widely available on the auction sites, too. I cannot say enough good about both. hands down my only recommendation if ever asked.

It’s been 6 years since I posted on this thread. I have been a customer even longer

I’m still very happy with Suretyhome. They follow up on every forum post, even to non customers. Central monotoring seems OK, I do notice a little more delay in getting a hold of them as they grow. It’s hard to this and evaluate as in the end, what really matter is the time from the incident until the time someone shows up to help.

The monthly rates are very competitive. I also buy product from them when they may not be the cheapest as I know they will stand behind them, it’s not old inventory. On some products like the IQ4 panel itsled, they beat the prices of everyone. I’m guessing because they buy so much they get manufacturer discounts that they pass on.

They also have innovated over the years with way to service customers. Their customer portal allows you to do a lot without speaking to anyone. Even switch over a wholesaler system!

Some suggestions:

  • 24/7 response for subscribed customers if it’s a situation that involves security (not automation)

  • Proactive updates on monitoring station status and improvements. Maybe response time is faster? Maybe you hired 10 more people. Post these updates and improvements. Showcase why your monitoring is best in class more as it makes us feel comfortable. Maybe share stories of a crime being prevented by montioring and the quick response rate

  • Not sure if chat features has been implemented during business hours?

  • Wish there were more disuccsions about new devices or new ways to use products. Alarmgrid has a blog for this. Wish more people were more active in the forum regarding this. How can Surety facilitate this

Bottom line is I am really happy with Surety and again, I really push my service and products to the max. Thought people would enjoy the perspective of someone who is a long time customer and pretty particular about security and service

Have you had problems with the monitoring center? They’ve been nothing but fantastic for me.

AvantGuard actually has a blog here. If you go over to the the AG News tab, they have a bunch of AG Heroes stories that might fit what you are looking for. They also have a post from late December showing all the progress they have made in 2021, including opening a 3rd monitoring center.