False Alarms: Improving Security System Accuracy

The Long-Standing False Alarm Problem

The security industry has grown and changed, but one thing remains the same: security system owners demand a swift, accurate, and effective response to alerts and issues. One of owners’ top frustrations with their security systems is failure to accurately identify the presence of unauthorized individuals on a property, leading to false alarms.

• 62% of security system owners report experiencing a false alarm in the past 12 months.
• 53% of security system owners who experienced a false alarm cite a non-person as the cause.

The prevalence of false alarms is also a top reason households give when canceling monitoring services. The detrimental impact of false alarms on human and financial resources has caused municipalities to impose false alarm fees, penalties, and de-prioritization of calls. Security dealers understand the seriousness of the issue. In fact, video verification to prevent false alarms is the top add-on service security dealers are likely to add to offerings, according to Parks Associates’ Security Dealer Survey.

The value of security solutions is threatened when systems detect and alert users to issues that are not actual security events or emergencies. About half of system owners say their security system triggers too many false alarms and nearly one-in-ten report they experienced more than five false alarms in a 12-month period.

Most false alarms that are due to user error are generated from people living in the home:

• Incorrect password
• False alarm caused by children
• False alarm caused by adult living in home

Security owners also report that their systems misidentify too many moving things as intruders, including pets, wildlife, and objects. False alerts can frustrate users by generating large numbers of notifications due to harmless triggers, leading users to doubt the value of their system and disable or ignore alerts.

Download our complimentary White Paper, “Solving False Alarms: Bringing New Context for Monitoring,” developed in collaboration with Ubiety Technologies, Inc.

This white paper examines a significant problem facing the security industry - false alarms - including the costs and potential solutions. It also analyzes the impact of the new Alarm Validation Standard introduced by The Monitoring Association (TMA-AVS-01). The paper highlights the impact of false alarms on public safety, with emergency responders often diverted from genuine security events to respond to false alarms, and the provisions in the TMA-AVS-01 designed to reduce false alarms while still ensuring proper responses for actual emergencies. Download now: https://tinyurl.com/2jvxx34c

Parks Associates?helps companies navigate the changing consumer technology landscapes through data-driven market insights, extensive consumer and industry intelligence, and trailblazing conferences. Explore our industry research: https://tinyurl.com/2jvxx34c