As Seen on BBC CLIK

I live in an inner city area with where the most common criminal act is burglary. I’d never thought much of it as I live in a building and know all of my neighbours, and then the Alert Me turned up. Hmmm, security. But do I really need it? I can’t imagine many people say no to that question and neither did I. Now I have security and a damn good thing too.

The Alert Me is incredibly easy to set up, or so I thought. I hadn’t read the instructions so just as I thought I was done, I had to go back and do it all again. My mistake? I’d set up all of the Alert Me devices before I’d sorted out the hub, so by the time the hub was set, all the devices had timed out. Luckily I had the Alert Me Help and Support forum. I put in a request for assistance that night and had a reply back by the morning.
I wasn’t so lucky with the Customer Service Chat. After entering the ‘room’ I was informed that I was in a queue of one. As I was happy to wait I got on with other things. Checking a short while later I was surprised to see that my ‘session’ had timed out without even a response from the technical assistant. Luckily I managed to solve that little issue on my own so I didn’t have to attempt the chat room again.

The Alert Me is basically a ‘hub’ which connects to your broadband and everything else is done online. You register your hub on the Alert Me site and once that is done you set up the devices. This way the hub should wirelessly connect to your devices as you go along.
The devices themselves look very good quality. Alex was around to help set the Alert me up and she was very impressed. The Alert Me system has a choice of devices which you can use, from motion sensors, keyfobs, door/window sensors and alarm detectors. Each device comes with a range of sticky pads which you use to attach them to the wall, doors or windows. Make sure you make up your mind before you stick them up however, as once that adhesive touches something it is impossible to take off again!

Obviously as I’ve had no fires or burglaries lately, the only Alert Me device I’ve interacted with regularly is the door sensor. Every day as I press the ‘Away’ icon on my keyfob the Alert Me politely asks me to ‘Please exit the building’. When I return home the Alert Me welcomes me back. It can be a bit disconcerting at first. If someone manages to open the door or windows while you’re not at home, the Alert Me will announce to them that they have triggered off an alarm before sending you a text and email informing you of the intrusion.

It doesn’t end there however, as there is still the Alert Me site. Not only will it provide you with customer support, it will also keep a log, a graph and a timeline of your device activities. It will tell you the temperature around your home, and allow you to set minimum and maximum temp’s (useful if it snows and you’ve left the heating off). It can even let you keep a phone book of people to contact if any of your sensors go off.
The Alert Me system also has complete battery back-up, which means that if your electricity supply fails or your telephone line goes down, this system reverts to battery and the SIM card installed in the Hub.
If you spend half your life online, or always have a phone on you and are worried about security, then this could be the device for you.

The Alert Me Security costs £249 (plus £9.99 per month) and is available from alertme.com