I always thought that home alarm systems were a joke and the life alert “I’ve fallen and can’t get up!” commercial was just funny. Well that was until my father fell and actually did break his hip and my mother was out with friends. See a about a year ago we all got home alarms. This was done after I found out about some of the advancements that have been made and how the competition between the big 3 have created a competition that makes it super cheap to have your own home alarm system.

We were finally sold on ours when I started thinking about he home alarm systems and the fact that my parents are getting older and if I didn’t push them towards this they would never do it. Yeah they had an alarm when I was younger but I really think it was more for the door alarms and window alarms that would ding whenever I tried to sneak out. They had moved after I grew up and no longer had their system in place.

With the competition that is going on they were able to get their system installed like me for nothing. After that our monthly payments are less than it costs us to fill our gas tanks. Since everything was free when they installed we all got the remotes that activate and deactivate the home alarm systems, but even more importantly they have a panic button.

My father was coming in from the snow and slipped on the ice at the stairs. When he fell he broke his hip and there was no way he could have made it to the door in that condition. As I said it was a very bad true life “I’ve fallen and can’t get up!” moment. But my parents didn’t have life alert, they had a life alert alternative. The sales person had told us that the remotes had this feature though lets be honest we never expected to need it!

Still my father hit the “panic” button and the alarm home monitor called EMS and help for my father. I can honestly say now that I will always keep the service of an alarm company on my side. They are constantly competing and while my contract still has 2 years on it, in 2 more years I will go back and use it to my advantage again. Who knows? You can upgrade your system if you are past your 3 years AND lower your monthly rates.

Burglars get smarter every year, shouldn’t our burglar systems at least try to catch up? Every 3 years an update is definitely called for!