Free Webinar: Maximizing the Effectiveness of Your Resident Safety Monitoring System

Long-Term Living is hosting a free webinar to discuss how to maximize the effectiveness of your resident safety monitoring system.

• Day: Tuesday, April 30, 2013
• Time: 1:00 p.m. ET
• Speaker: Ken Sandifer, Senior Vice President of Service and Operations at RF Technologies

Purchasing a nurse call or wandering management system is a major investment for senior living communities. Environmental conditions impact the effectiveness of resident safety monitoring systems. The risk/cost equation needs to be balanced to protect your safety system. How does your resident safety monitoring system measure up?

Click here to sign up for this complimentary webinar today!

Free Dealer Webinar: Napco iSee Video Remote Security Services

Napco is hosting a free webinar to review the features and benefits of the Napco iSee Video Remote Security Services for security dealers and installers. The online training is this coming Tuesday.

Register here: www.napcosecurity.com/seminars

Get into the fastest growing new segment of RMR today: We’ll show you how from installation to marketing. See iSee Video’s New attractive and salable high-tech options: Offer new and existing accounts the best, plug and play, totally affordable video security system on the market. There will be a question and answer session after the training presentation.

Kwikset & Leviton Spotlight Z-Wave at ISC West

Attention dealers: Kwikset and Leviton team up to host a class at ISC West on enhanced RMR using Z-Wave enabled products and services. Join them Thursday, April 11, 12:45 pm – 2:45 PM in room 704.

• Find out the details here

Real Integration Right Now: Don’t believe the hype on Z-Wave interoperability? Kwikset & Leviton’s wildly successful Door Locks and Vizia RF+ Lighting solutions are the robust, proven, and affordable way to Z-Wave enable today’s smartest homes. In this session, Kwikset and Leviton demonstrate how easy it is to tie locks and lighting controls to security and home control solutions from today’s leading manufacturers. Using these strategies, products, and best practices can double the RMR on any installation by providing the apps your customers want to pay for today!

Who Is Best To Install A PERS?

Rich Miller of Security Systems News has been covering the evolving PERS (Personal Emergency Response System) market. His latest story covers a survey his publication conducted on who should be installing these systems, a common topic on our blog.

Battlefield PERS: Readers break down outlook for security

Here’s the story: The market for personal emergency response systems is rapidly expanding, but can security companies looking for a share expect to compete with home health-care providers?

Thirty-five percent of respondents to SSN’s April News Poll said yes, giving the edge to security companies on PERS because they already have expertise in monitoring. But 42 percent said no, pointing to a tool that could give home-health companies significant leverage in the future: existing databases of potential PERS users.

Many of the readers who commented said that gaining market share would require looking beyond senior citizens, who have been the traditional PERS demographic.

“Cellphones have now siphoned off much of the original PERS business of 30 years ago when pendants had a short range of about 50 feet from the two-way voice controller and [the phones] were very expensive,” wrote Lee Jones, owner of Support Services Group of San Clemente, Calif. “Much of that outdated PERS technology is still offered today to reach a very narrow market of ‘infirmed’ that could be captured by professional health-care providers. We believe other markets for the short-range pendant could include younger stay-at-home families where accidents happen with children.” Read more of this story

Who Is Going To Support The Growing Senior Community?

For years, the editors at CE Pro magazines have been reporting how the senior and independent living communities is the next best market for home automation dealers and integrators. Now, the security market is joining the conversation, with Security Systems News publishing a story headlined “Security companies, others eye growth of PERS market.” Is this the next best thing? Are dealers as interested as the media? What do you see as your advantages, and your disadvantages? We’d like to know!

Here’s the story: YARMOUTH, Maine – With the market for personal emergency response systems projected to grow substantially in the coming years, it’s easy to see why financial analysts and security companies alike are taking an interest in it.

Fueled by factors such as an aging population, the potential cost savings for seniors who stay in their own home, and the relative resilience of the market, growth is in the forecast for PERS (personal emergency response systems). However, the projections tend to belie two important points: First, that it’s not easy for security companies to enter the PERS market, and second, the market is still defining itself from a technical standpoint.

A potential challenge to entering the market, according to Josh Garner, CEO of AvantGuard Monitoring Centers, based in Ogden, Utah, is that the barriers are not the same as those for traditional security companies.

“The biggest barrier to entry in the security industry might be technical skills, or how expensive and complex it is to start up a central station,” Garner said. “The PERS industry is not complex and not technically difficult. The biggest barrier to entry in the PERS industry is finding a market channel.”

Garner said a lot of PERS startups or companies adding PERS devices to their security offerings underestimate how difficult it is to identify and establish a market. The upshot is that these companies often end up spending a lot of money trying to find a marketing channel, but not getting anywhere because, Garner said, “they don’t find the right vein.”

This is often a function of misperceptions about whom they’re trying to engage.  » Read the entire story here

• See independent living products, including PERS, at Home Health Tech by Home Controls.

FCC Issues New Rules for Cellular Signal Boosters

Jason Knott of CE Pro reported today the FCC ruling will require by March 1, 2014 that cellular signal boosters cannot interfere with wireless networks or emergency calls.

Here’s the story: The FCC has issued new rules for cellular signal boosters that require the devices to abide by technical requirements that prohibit them from interfering with wireless networks and cause interference to other calls, including emergency and 911 calls. The new order increases technical requirements for cellular signal booster specifications and defines their use by consumers.

The ruling requires that beginning March 1st, 2014, consumer signal boosters sold in the U.S. will have to comply with the new technical specifications. AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon have already filed with the FCC their intent to give consent for signal boosters that meet the technical specifications.

The unanimous ruling is significant for integrators because this has become a growing category for revenue and installations.

In reaction to the ruling, Joe Banos, COO at Wilson Electronics, says, “Wilson Electronics applauds the adoption of FCC certification specifications for consumer cell phone signal boosters, which will eliminate poorly designed products that currently plague the market, and have been a source of cell site interference.

Breaking News: Nortek to Acquire 2Gig, Fold into Linear Security

As a major supplier for just about everything Linear offers, this story from CE Pro is very interesting and exciting to us at Home Controls:

Nortek Inc. is acquiring 2Gig Technologies, possibly the fastest-growing home automation and home security manufacturer in recent history, for about $135 million.

2Gig will be folded into Nortek subsidiary Linear LLC, provider of home security, garage door openers, commercial access controls, PERS and other electronic systems. In addition to Linear, Nortek owns the Core Brands of home technology companies including Elan Home Systems, SpeakerCraft (also available at Home Controls here), Niles Audio, Xantech and Panamax/Furman.

The 2Gig acquisition comes about five months after 2Gig was acquired, along with its biggest customer Vivint, by the Blackstone Group for $2 billion.

Under the terms of the agreement, Nortek will pay approximately $135 million for all of the outstanding common stock of 2Gig on a cash- and debt-free basis. The acquisition will be financed with a combination of cash on hand and borrowings under Nortek’s asset-based credit facility. The transaction is expected to close during the first half of 2013, subject to customary closing conditions.

Based in Lehi, Utah, near Salt Lake City, 2Gig has about 65 employees and sales of more than $100 million for 2012. Nortek, based in Providence, R.I., had net earnings of $22 million on sales of $1.7 billion for the nine months ended Sept. 29, 2012. Linear, based on Carlsbad, Calif., does not report its own financials.

• Read the entire store here on CE Pro »