Websites for security installers.

Usually, yes. Most Ontario insurers take somewhere between 5 and 15 percent off the home policy for a monitored alarm, and a bit more when monitored smoke and water sensors are on the same panel. They will ask for a certificate from the monitoring station, which we send you the day the system goes live.

No phone line. The panel reports over an LTE communicator on the cellular network, so a cut line or a dead router does not take the alarm offline, and the backup battery in the panel keeps it running through a power outage. Cameras on a local NVR keep recording during an internet outage; you just cannot watch them remotely until it comes back.

You can, and we will set it up that way if you want. Be clear about what you are giving up: nobody calls the police or fire department when you are asleep or on a plane, and most insurers only give the discount for a monitored system. A lot of people land on cameras and doorbell self-monitored, and the alarm on a monitoring plan.

Recording your own property, including the street and sidewalk in front of it, is legal in Ontario. Keep them off a neighbour's windows, yard and pool, and think twice about audio recording, which has its own rules. A business should post a sign that cameras are in use, which is what privacy law expects, and we set privacy masks in the camera so the neighbour's kitchen is blacked out even if it is in frame.

The station calls the numbers on your contact list to verify, and if nobody answers or the password is wrong they dispatch police. Some Ontario municipalities charge for repeat false alarms and a few require the alarm to be registered with police, so we tell you which applies where you live and set the entry delays and pet-immune sensors so you are not paying those fees.

In most cases. DSC, Honeywell, Paradox and similar panels can be reprogrammed to us and fitted with an LTE communicator, so you keep the sensors and keypads and only the monitoring changes. Some proprietary systems from the big national providers are locked and have to be replaced; we can tell you which you have from a photo of the panel and keypad.