Fedback from monitoring customers?

[Bill D]

I'm thinking about signing up for monitoring but haven't seen any feedback on this forum yet from real 2DS monitoring customers. I expected a few rants or raves by now. Could it be that everyone that signed up is happy and has no complaints? If that's the case, I would have expected at least a few gushing testimonials. The other possibility is that no one has signed up for monitoring yet, which seems unlikely.

[EyezOnRich]

Hi Bill

We have a lot of monitoring customers now... maybe they aren't all on the forum. As far as we know they are all happy with it.

We just added a new sign-up process that is more "on-line" friendly and an EnvisAlarm "Console" page that allows you to modify your monitoring contact data (i.e. key holders, processes, contact numbers, and zone info) anytime you need to and upload it automatically.

Our initial process was somewhat manual but we have automated most of it now.

Rich

[Bill D]

Rich,

Since there hasn't been any disgruntled monitoring customers jumping in here, I'll take your word that they're all happy and I'll probably sign up next week. I looked at your set-up pages and it all makes sense. A few questions:

Are there any programming changes I need make in my 5010 panel to use your service? (I've just obtained the installer's code).

Can I later add a second partition to my system with items I want my 2DS to still notify me about (gates, etc) but not trigger an alarm condition to the monitoring station?

[EyezOnRich]

Hi Bill

There are no programming changes that you need to make, but you should shut of the TLM module in programming just to avoid any unwanted system messages.

Can I later add a second partition to my system with items I want my 2DS to still notify me about (gates, etc) but not trigger an alarm condition to the monitoring station?

Yes you can

[JAlexander]

I'm a happy customer. The set-up is painless. You pre-pay, so there isn't a monthly bill. My system had a glitch shortly after I started the monitoring contract. And Tech support contacted me and helped me to fix my issue. I wasn't even aware of a problem before they called me about it. With the average telephone line monitoring, you would never know you have a failure until an emergency occurs and the panel fails to communicate. Some systems have line monitoring and daily, or monthly, test signals to the monitoring center. But most do not and those that do are expensive. I don't think that there is any better or cheaper system available. That's my endorsement. John Alexander

[Bill D]

John - Thanks for the endorsement. No doubt that running over the Internet adds capability to provide better monitoring service beyond dial-up and its good to hear these folks are using that capability.

Rich - thanks for the info. This system is in my second home and I'll be away for a while, but when I'm back, I plan to sign up for monitoring. I've had some trouble with my unattended router needing a reboot, but I've replaced it with one that hopefully is more reliable (D-Link DIR-655) and I'll be testing it while I'm away, so I've paid for another month of dial-up monitoring.

I've also mentioned this suggestion in another post - A nice feature for the 2DS would be cycling a PGM output when communication has been lost by the 2DS for long period. This could be used to force a power-cycle reboot of routers/modems at unattended sites. Stalled gear is one disadvantage of Internet monitoring.

[sokoloff]

My feedback is unfortunately quite negative. Although setting up the system went smoothly a few months ago, more recently I have found the support unbelievably poor. I discovered that the third-party monitoring center (Consolidated Monitoring) that is subcontracted to Eyez-On was not in fact getting any data from my system. Apparently, there was a "Network Supervision Fault" a month ago that caused the monitoring centre to email Eyez-On, but they in turn did nothing about it and did not contact me. I rebooted everything and then the Eyez-On website was getting good data from my system, e.g. showing zone status correctly, however the monitoring centre was still disconnected and had no data on my system whatsoever.

Over a period of the last three days I have phoned Eyez-On three times but all I got was voicemail, and leaving a message has not resulted in any callbacks. E-mail messages to Eyez-On have also not been replied to. By contrast, the folks at the monitoring centre (run by Consolidated Monitoring) have been extremely helpful, however all they could do was pester Eyez-On to respond to me, which has yet to happen.

This kind of responsiveness gives a whole new meaning to alarm monitoring!

[Bill D]

...Apparently, there was a "Network Supervision Fault" a month ago that caused the monitoring centre to email Eyez-On, but they in turn did nothing about it and did not contact me. I rebooted everything and then the Eyez-On website was getting good data from my system, e.g. showing zone status correctly, however the monitoring centre was still disconnected and had no data on my system whatsoever.

After my posts above, I signed up and have been a monitoring customer for 9 months and everything has worked well. I've done many tests, on purpose and by accident, and Consolidated called me quickly each time.

Your description above is troubling and seems to indicate the existence of a "flawed state", which I hope doesn't exist. That state would be a situation where Consolidated is out-of-touch with your system while EyezOn is in-touch. This would give you a false sense of security by seeing your zone followers, etc working but Consolidated would not be alerted if an alarm occurred.

I would hope Consolidated would let me know ASAP if they are out-of-touch with my system. One of the big advantages of EyezOn over dial-up is the supervised connection. Your post seems to say there's two connections, one supervised and one not.

Hopefully the EyezOn guys will get you fixed, but I'd also like to hear from them about whether or not this "flawed state" exists. In other words, will Consolidated call me if they lose contact with my system, even if EyezOn still has contact with it?

[GrandWizard]

What sokoloff is saying isn't true. CML doesn't do network supervision, we do the network supervision and as most of you know it works quite well (too well sometimes ).

As an Envisalarm customer you are responisble to make sure your equipment is working and when we detect that it is not, you will receive a Network Supervision notification. If you choose to ignore this situation for almost 6 weeks then there is nothing we can do for you.

Bill D, the situtation you describe cannot happen. In the event all three of CML's redundant servers become unavailable, you would receive a special Envisalert called "Envisalarm FTC" (Fail to Communicate). Nobody has ever received this message because CML's server's have never failed, at least not all three of them at once.

We care very much for our customers and take our Envisalarm service very seriously. Hence we take the posting of misinformation on our forum very seriously as well.

[Bill D]

Bill D, the situtation you describe cannot happen. In the event all three of CML's redundant servers become unavailable, you would receive a special Envisalert called "Envisalarm FTC" (Fail to Communicate). Nobody has ever received this message because CML's server's have never failed, at least not all three of them at once.

I’m not sure I understand the relationship between the supervision of my 2DS-to-EyezOn connection and the supervision of my 2DS-to-CML connection.

Is this statement correct? A user will get an Envisalarm FTC message if their 2DS losses connection to all 3 of CML’s servers (for any reason), whether or not their 2DS has a connection with EyezOn.