Monitoring professionals discuss the benefits of different central station software options.

Advice from the frontline on how to balance data collection, human interpretation, and customer expectations

SDM Managing Editor Courtney Wolfe introduces the special video monitoring issue.

First, allow me to say I am honored to be chair of the Alarm Industry Communications Committee (AICC). We typically meet four times a year in Washington, D.C. For years I have resisted having AICC go online, even in a hybrid form.

Last summer, we were already a few months into a pandemic-induced lockdown. Businesses everywhere were closing their doors, employees were working from home, and, luckily, most security professionals were considered to be ‘essential.’

False alarms have long troubled video monitoring stations. With stations in Lafayette and Baton Rouge, La. and Chicago, Ill., Acadian Monitoring Services did better than most in the industry, estimating only two of three alarms received were false.

Jacqueline Brogan, central station manager at Alarm Detection Systems in Aurora, Ill., is The Monitoring Association’s 2020 Central Station Manager of the Year for her work in leading a team of more than 20 operators. She first joined the team in 2012 as an operator, then became a customer service representative in 2015. She returned to the central station in 2019 to take on her current position.

Central station redundancy and its significance is essential to understand. A select group have maintained redundancy over the years, although UL hasn’t mandated redundancy until recently.

Traditional security and the smart home are the same. There — I’ve said it. Our industry likes to see them as different, but for someone growing up now, without any preconceptions of alarm systems, they all just look like a lot of gadgets for the home.  So what does this mean for the smart home and traditional alarm monitoring?