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(More customer reviews)(Delailah is my wife's name) I moved from Scottsdale (upper end area in Arizona) to Victorville, California (federal prison, lower end type town) because of a great job offer. I am married and have 3 young children. I did not want to hire a commercial home alarm company or sign up for a service. The last time we did this and I moved ealier than expected, I paid a $600 penalty to buy-out of the contract with the alarm company (the big one with blue signs that look like little stop signs).
So I did a lot of online research. I am a Harvard-trained physician so I am very particular and careful. Though obviously there is no perfect system, the AAS 300 Wireless Home Security Alarm System seemed to offer the most bang for the buck.
It has many of the features of expensive professionally-installed systems. Here is a summary:
1. The components are reliable, robust, and well-packaged.
2. You can easily expand the system by buying additional sensors, detectors, etc. tax-free and with no shipping costs directly from the company (website included in instructions).
3. I have read the complaints about numbering the remotes and I believe they are unfounded. If you read the instructions carefully and understand the system, you will understand why there are certain numbers dedicated for certain types of sensors/detectors.
4. Read the instructions 2 times BEFORE starting set-up.
5. Lay all the parts out on a table and take your time. You will see the door/window sensor are assigned certain numbers while motion and glass break sensors are assigned different numbers. This allows the system to keep track of sensors that should be on when you are at home, and sensors that should only be on when you are not at home - so the system will NOT respond to motion detectors while you are at home. (You would activate the "Home" rather than "Away" button). Otherwise, when you got up in the night to get a drink of water, you would set off the motion detector and trigger the alarm. When you press "Away" the motion detectors are recognized.
6. After you assign each sensor to the alarm system, you then install them at each door and window. i.e. Sensor 01 Front Door, Sensor 02 Kitchen Window, Sensor 03, Girl's Bedroom, etc. Type the numbers and assigned areas out and tape the printout to your main system's keypad. When the alarm is triggered you will know which area has been breached.
7. There is a back up battery in case electrical power is shut off. The loud alarm will still function without electricity. In fact, my alarm system went off. I went home to find out that the electrical company had shut off electrical power to the neighborhood for maintenance/repair. So I believe the system is designed to alarm when it detects that electrical power has been cut off.
8. When programming your system, I would NOT connect your sirens like the instructions tell you to. Do that LAST as if you accidentally turn them on while programming all your equipment, you will find out the hard way that they are VERY LOUD AND EAR-PIERCING (PERFECT to scare burglars but painful when 2 feet away and aimed directly at your ear).
9. There is a strobe light that turns on to further scare off would-be intruders. The strobe unit also has a siren sound.
10. The burglar could unplug your main siren, but the strobe light/siren unit would serve as a backup to continue making a sound. If you want, you could order several of these and scatter them throughout the house, hiding some behind the bed, etc. The burglar would be confused and probably woult not take time to hunt down each one and unplug.
11. The remote controls are encased in a beautiful pearl white case, simlar to the paint jobs on certain Lexus vehicles. The remote allows you to activate Away, Home, and Panic modes.
12. I ordered a dedicated Panic button remote for my kids. It has a BIG RED button that they can run to and press to activate the alarm. We keep this Panic remote at home at all times (the other remotes are on our key chains - they have 4 buttons and the kids might not know which little button is the panic button on the standard remote).
13. The system can call up to six telephone numbers when the alarm is activated. It was easy to program and it works. I programmed 2 cell phones and 2 land lines and it sequentially called all 4 numbers. It will keep calling until you deactivate remotely by phone (see instructions).
14. There is even a way to call out from the alarm system utilizing wireless communication, but you have to get a chip and a wireless service. I did not bother with this.
15. You can link the system to a smoke and gas detector alarm as well.
16. You can get pet-friendly motion detectors so your pets do not activate the alarm.
17. You can set up so the alarm will go off if the phone line is cut/interrupted or of another device is operating on the same frequency. (I did not do this because I live in a duplex and do not want the neighbor complaining if the phone service gets cut off during a storm (for example), but if I were in a stand-alone house with a large yard, I definitely would activate this feature).
NOTE: THE MOTION DETECTORS SENSE HEAT, AND I HAD SEVERAL FALSE ALARMS WHEN THE HEATER TURNED ON, CAUSING HOT AIR TO BLOW IN THE SENSING ZONE OF THE MOTION DETECTOR. SOLUTIONS: 1. EITHER SHUT HEATER OFF WHEN LEAVING HOUSE 2. IF YOU NEED TO HAVE THE HEATER ON (i.e. SUB-FREEZING TEMPERATURES TO PREVENT PLUMBING LINES FROM FREEZING, CRACKING, AND LEAKING) THEN SHUT THE MOTION DETECTOR SWITCHES OFF (SWITCH ON SIDE OF ACTUAL MOTION DETECTOR) 3. OR YOU CAN HIT "HOME" INSTEAD OF "AWAY" MODE (EVEN THOUGH YOU AREA LEAVING THE HOUSE) AND THE MOTION DETECTORS WILL NOT SENSE THE HEAT FROM THE HEATER - BUT YOU LOSE PROTECTION HERE BECAUSE IF AN INTRUDER BREAKS THE GLASS AND DOES NOT ACTUALLY SIDE A WINDOW FRAME OPEN THEN HE BYPASSES YOUR ALARM SYSTEM. LIKEWISE, I WOULD NOT PUT MOTION DETECTOR IN THE GARAGE AS IT MIGHT SENSE HEAT AS IT BUILDS UP DURING THE SUMMER, TRIGGERING A FALSE ALARM.
REDUNDANT LAYERS OF PROTECTION:
1. If any window or door is opened, the alarm turns on. This is your FIRST LAYER OF PROTECTION.
2. The sensor only activates the alarm if the window is opened. If the window is broken and the intruder enters WITHOUT sliding the window frame open, the sensor will NOT activate the alarm. THAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THE MOTION DETECTOR. It will be your SECOND LAYER OF PROTECTION. The movement of the intruder will activate the alarm.
4. You need to place motion detectors strategically to cover all major zones in your property/house.
TWO CRITIQUES:
1. The glass break sensor that I purchased separately was a disaster. While programming it something happened to the alarm system. Even when it was OFF (DISARMED) it would suddenly go off. The alarm system indicated the glass had been broken. Even after unplugging (deactivating) the glass break sensor, the alarm system was stuck in this mode of thinking that the glass had been broken and kept alarming EVEN WHEN DISARMED. I had to deprogram ALL THE SENSORS and reprogram them. As I did this, I found it very touchy. Pressing the wrong button while re-programming each sensor on the doors, windows, and the motion detectors caused the alarm system to "jam" again and keep alarming even when DISARMED. I had to re-program the system about 11 times. Not only did I have to clear all the sensors, I had to RESET the system to the FACTORY SETTINGS and I lost all my programming data. When I meticulously focused on reprogramming, I finally got it right - except I did not have the glass detector programmed any longer. I am returning this unit and obtaining 2 more motion detectors to replace it. SUGGESTION: DO NOT USE THE REMOTES TO RE-PROGRAM THE ALARM SYSTEM SENSORS IF YOU HAVE TO ERASE THE SENSORS FROM MEMORY. IF YOU DO AND PRESS THE WRONG BUTTON ON THE REMOTE, THE ALARM SYSTEM MAY GET STUCK IN A MODE AND KEEP ALARMING EVEN WHEN UNPLUGGED AND EVEN WHEN DISARMED (If this happens, turn the alarm OFF - the switch is inside the key pad unit, found through the little rectangular hole at the bottom). WHEN DOING THIS, OF COURSE UNPLUG ALL THE SIRENS (NOISE-MAKERS) UNLESS YOU WANT TO HAVE HEARING DAMAGE. RE-PROGRAM ONLY USING THE KEYPAD ON THE MAIN UNIT.
Because I had to reset it to factory settings, I had to reprogram all 4 remotes, all the sensors, the time-delays, my personal 4-digit pass code, and the auto-dialed phone numbers. It was very frustrating, but in the end I got it to work. Plan on spending 4 to 8 hours to fix the system if it gets "jammed" like mine did.
2. The delay time for the alarm to activate sirens and strobe lights once it is triggered by a sensor can be set from 1 to 30 minutes. If you program a 60 second delay time, this is good for when you return to the house. You open the front door and you have 60 seconds to shut the alarm off by punching your 4-digit code in. However, even in the "Home" or "Panic" modes, when the alarm is activated there will still be a 60-second delay before the loud sirens and strobe lights are turned on by the system. If you are at home and someone opens the window, you probably would want the alarm to make noise and flash bright lights immediately and NOT wait 60 seconds. You can set the time to 0 seconds in which case the siren and strobe lights would sound right away. The trade-off here would be that you would have to use your remote to shut off the alarm BEFORE your open the front door. If you forget, the alarm will go off as soon as your open the door (even in the "Away" mode).
In addition to this alarm system, you can add your own deterrants.
Buy a chime/noise maker that detects motion when someone is at your front your back door.
Buy a motion detector that...Read more›
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