What is alarm monitoring?

Alarm monitoring means your intruder alarm sends a signal to a staffed Alarm Receiving Centre (ARC) when it activates, and that centre takes action — calling you, calling your keyholders, or requesting police attendance — rather than the alarm simply making a noise at the property.

An unmonitored alarm, usually called a bells-only alarm, relies entirely on someone nearby hearing the siren and choosing to do something about it. If the property is empty, or the neighbours are used to ignoring alarms, nothing happens.

A monitored alarm adds a communication path. A signalling device wired into the alarm panel sends the activation to an ARC — a control room staffed 24 hours a day. Operators there follow a pre-agreed response plan for your property: typically attempting to reach you and your nominated contacts, and where the system qualifies, requesting police attendance.

The monitoring is a service with an ongoing fee, separate from the alarm hardware. You can have a perfectly good alarm with no monitoring, and you can add monitoring to most existing alarms without replacing the whole system.