How do I choose a home alarm system?

Start with the monitoring decision

Everything else about a home alarm follows from one choice: do you want someone to call for help when it goes off, or only an alert on your phone?

With professional monitoring, an operator receives the alarm signal and requests help. Ring, for example, says that with your eligible subscription, if your Alarm is triggered, it will request the emergency help you need, day or night.^[2] Ring's Pro plan includes 24/7 Professional Monitoring, and Ring recommends it for anyone with a Ring Alarm.^[1] Its lower-priced Solo and Multi plans do not list professional monitoring.^[1] Read what each tier includes, from any company, before you compare prices.

If you are often away, have no neighbor nearby or want fire and carbon monoxide response too, monitoring is usually worth paying for. If you are home most days and mainly want a loud siren and a phone alert, a self-monitored system can be enough.

Match the equipment to the house

Walk through the house and list the exterior doors, the ground-floor windows and the rooms a person would have to cross to get to the bedrooms. Door and window sensors cover the openings, motion sensors cover the rooms, and a keypad or phone app arms and disarms the system. Kits are sold by sensor count, so your list tells you which size to compare.

Plan for the first floor and any basement or garage door first. Upstairs windows matter less in most homes than the doors and ground-level openings.

Ask how it stays online

An alarm that goes quiet in an outage is not much use. Ring says its Alarm kit runs on battery backup for up to 24 hours even if the power goes out.^[2] It also says that if your home loses internet connection, alarm cellular backup keeps your Ring Alarm system connected and able to send alarm signals.^[2]

Whatever brand you consider, ask three things: how long the battery lasts, whether the signal to the monitoring center has a cellular path when the internet is down, and whether that backup costs extra.

Decide who installs it

Many modern kits are made for self-installation. Ring describes it as: plug in the Ring Alarm Base Station, connect your sensors in the Ring app, and control it with the Keypad.^[2] That suits most apartments and many houses, and it needs no work on the home's wiring.

A professional install makes sense if you want a hardwired system, a large house with many openings, or someone else to place and test every sensor. In Virginia that company needs a license. An electronic security business is any person who engages in the business of or undertakes to install, service, maintain, design or consult in the design of any electronic security equipment to an end user, respond to or cause a response to electronic security equipment for an end user, or have access to confidential information concerning the design, extent, status, password, contact list, or location of an end user's electronic security equipment.^[4] No person shall engage in the private security services business or solicit private security business in the Commonwealth without having obtained a license from the Department.^[3] You can read more in do alarm companies need a license in Virginia.

Check the company and the paperwork

Ask for the company's Virginia license number. All private security services businesses in Virginia must include their license number on all business advertising materials,^[3] so a company that cannot give you one is a company to skip.

Then read the contract for the things that cost you later: the length of the term, the monthly fee and whether it rises, who owns the equipment, what happens if you move, and how to cancel. DPOR's hiring guide says to get all oral promises in writing.^[7]

If a salesperson came to your door without an appointment, you may have extra time to change your mind. A buyer has the right to cancel a home solicitation sale until midnight of the third business day after signing the agreement,^[5] and the act covers a consumer sale or lease in which the seller engages in a personal solicitation at any residence other than that of the seller without prior invitation or appointment.^[6]

Compare like for like

Give each company the same list of doors, windows, motion sensors, cameras and monitoring level, and compare the total over three to five years, not just the first month. DPOR's hiring guide advises getting at least three written bids or estimates using identical plans and specifications.^[7] Pricing is covered in how much a monitored home alarm system costs in Virginia.

Stop and call a pro if

• The system needs to be wired into the house. Hardwired power or panel connections are electrical work, not a plug-in job. Hire a licensed company instead.
• You want a system tied to fire or carbon monoxide response in a larger or older home. Ask a licensed installer to design and test it.
• A company cannot show a Virginia license number. Do not sign.
• A salesperson pressures you to sign on the spot. Step back and use the questions above.

Getting help in Virginia

If cameras are part of your plan, read how much a home security camera system costs in Virginia and where to put security cameras on a house. Browse Security & Smart Home or see more smart home answers. When you are ready, describe the job and local pros quote it.