Overheard a customer say their system went off 3 times last night and nobody came

I was at a supply house Tuesday and this guy was complaining to the counter guy how his alarm went off 3 times and nobody from the monitoring center ever called. Turns out he had a cheap cellular communicator that kept losing signal. Made me think about how many installs I've done where I just assume the radio path is fine without actually testing it. Any of you guys do a signal test at every install?

2 comments

2 Comments

allen.amy2d ago

Man I had a similar thing back in October, did a panel swap on a townhouse and the communicator just dropped off the network at 3am and the customer was furious by morning. Now I always do a full signal test with the central station before I even pack up my tools, even if it takes an extra 10 minutes.

benwilliams2d ago

Funny how 3am always seems to be the magic hour for stuff like that, right @allen.amy? I mean, it's like the universe knows when you're sleeping and decides to make you look bad. Back when I did more residential work I had a similar thing happen with a cellular communicator that just randomly went silent at 2am. Customer called me at 6am screaming about how their alarm never reported a window break. Turns out the sim card wasn't seated all the way. That 10 minute extra test sure beats a midnight phone call, doesn't it?