I have been helping customers over the past years on how to choose the alarms to best suit their needs and perfectly fit their pocket. There are a wide variety of burglar alarm brands available in the market. First let us decide on wired or wireless alarms.
Pros and Cons of wired and wireless alarms
|
Pros & Cons |
Wired Alarms | Wireless Alarms | Conclusion |
| Cost | Intruder Alarm control panel and associated devices are cheaper but there is additional cost involved in labour as it takes double the time to fit an alike wireless alarm | All devices in a wireless burglar alarm system is more expensive than wired one but are easy to install. So labour cost can be waved off | No much difference. |
| Maintenance | The back up battery in the control panel and siren needs to be changed and tested every 3-4 years | There is a bit of saving in this regard as wireless alarms has to be serviced every 2 years | Can save a bit on wired in this regard |
| Decor | There can be a sight of trunking or cables around the corners if cables are not run internally. But, the sleek design of the siren and control panel are really mind blowing if your choose Risco LightSys wired alarm. | Perfect finish and no harm to the décor of your house | Here, the winner is wireless home security system. |
| Performance | Meets British Standards | Meets British Standards | Equal weightage |
| False Alarms | Equally reliable, but can trigger false alarm due to power failure if the alarm isn’t maintained regularly. | Wireless Alarm that function on 868MHz frequency are less prone to false alarms. Read our blog on how to stop false alarms
|
Both are Reliable |
| Security | Wired Alarms gives tamper alerts if a wire is cut even accidently. An installer has to come and fix this before the system is ready for use again. | Professionally installed British Standard Alarms cannot be jammed by external means | Wired & Wireles Alarms are secure |
| Future Expansion | Involves more labour if planning for an extension in future. | Easy to add additional sensors to the existing home alarm system in future | Wireless saves a bit of money here. |
So now we have decided on wired and wireless alarm, let us move on to security alarm features. More feature, more money. The price range in the table below includes the product cost and professional installation fee.
| Feature | Supports | Price | Brands |
| Bell Only – Alert an incident by sounding the siren | Wired & Wireless | £ | Yale
|
| Bell + Telephone Alert – Alerts the designated person and few other numbers through pre-recorded messages at the time of an event through phone call from your landline. | Wired & Wireless | ££ | Yale
Visonic Pyronix |
| Bell + Mobile Alert – Alerts the designated person and few other numbers through pre-recorded messages at the time of an event through phone call from a SIM installed in the system control panel. | Wired & Wireless | ££ | Yale
Visonic Pyronix |
| Bell + Call Alert + Messages/Push notifications on your phone | Wired & Wireless | ££ | Yale
Visonic Pyronix |
| Bell + Call Alert + Messages + Smart phone App to control your security system remotely | Wired( Risco LightSys ) & Wireless | £££ | Yale
Visonic Pyronix Risco |
| Bell + Call Alert + Messages + Smart phone App + Camera Sensors to identify what triggered the alarm or even get a picture of the what happened at the time of alarm | Wireless | £££ | Yale
Visonic Pyronix Risco |
Here Yale is a diy option and doesn’t meet British Standards while all other systems need to be professionally installed by a trained engineer. Don’t worry if you are not a diy expert, we can install them for you.