HKC app - Is it worth the money

Mantis Toboggan

Hi, I've had an alarm fitted to the house and i'm being quoted €170 upfront and then €60 every year for the app. I wanted the app but it feels a little wrong having to pay so much just for an app.

Is the app any good and is it worth the money?

BobMc

I've one of those HKC apps I think from recollection I paid closer to e40 for the year, is there different price levels depending on alarm or services ?

bk

I'd assume that the €170 (one off) is for the hardware needed to allow the alarm system to communicate out over GSM and wifi.

€60 per year is what HKC charge for the service on their side.

The app actually costs €8, which you may have to pay for multiple devices/family members depending on your steup.

You should of course double check all of the above.

I think it is all quiet expensive in this day and age for this sort of technology. But if you have a hkc system already and want remote self monitoring, then it is your only choice.

KoolKid

My advice as an installer is there is better available cheaper or free depending on what you want.
The app itself is way overpriced for something that's fairly basic.
The notification on poll times us ridiculously slow at 5 hours where others are 5 minutes or less.
I'd recommend looking at GSD ,Siemens Vanderbilt or Risco id you want better value.

Mantis Toboggan

KoolKid wrote: »

My advice as an installer is there is better available cheaper or free depending on what you want.
The app itself is way overpriced for something that's fairly basic.
The notification on poll times us ridiculously slow at 5 hours where others are 5 minutes or less.
I'd recommend looking at GSD ,Siemens Vanderbilt or Risco id you want better value.

Cheers, do these all work with a hkc alarm?

KoolKid

No. If you have a HKC alarm you are tied to them for apps & app service I'm afraid.

Stoner

We've a sticky on this, might be a bit dated now

The hkc app is basic but solid

It is very reliable
It deals with multiple sites so your purchase can watch multiple alarms

The basic package has polling times that are more suited to a holiday home than a residential property as the gap between polling times is so long.

With all of these systems overlapping them with another device is recommended.

KoolKid

Would you not prefer better security for a holiday home as it's going to be unoccupied more?
All systems apps mentioned are multi site also.

Mantis Toboggan

Lads it's a residential property. What are polling times?

KoolKid

GSD can notify you of a comms loss in 5 minutes with instant notification if comms is lost after an alarm event.
Siemens Vanderbilt can be set lower than a minute if you want.
HKC is 5 hours.

bk

Mantis Toboggan wrote: »

Lads it's a residential property. What are polling times?

Basically the amount of time it takes for an alarm company to notice that it can't connect to the alarm system in your home and notify you of it.

Basically how all this works is:

Alarm -> Alarm Company Servers -> Your App

Normally if your alarm goes off, it will send a signal to the alarm company over either GSM or IP who in turn notify you of the alarm.

However sometimes that communication link between the alarm and alarm company can fail, either due to a failure or because a thief uses one of various methods to block it. You then wouldn't know if the alarm went off.

To help protect against this, alarm companies will poll (communicate) with your alarm at a certain set interval to check if it is still active and notify you if it sees a failure. That doesn't necessarily say that the alarm triggered, but it does indicate something unusual is up and you can investigate (call neighbours to check, etc.).

Obviously the more frequent the polling the better. Some systems poll every 5 minutes or less, while HKC only seem to do it every 5 hours, which is poor.

kub

bk wrote:

Obviously the more frequent the polling the better. Some systems poll every 5 minutes or less, while HKC only seem to do it every 5 hours, which is poor.

I just need to correct this, you get what you pay for with HKC, just like life.
It will poll at higher rates if you are prepared to pay for it.

KoolKid

Thats correct. Here are the higher rates...

Premium - €7.00 per month (Incl. VAT)
Managed World SIM
Unlimited App control + notifications
SMS control + notifications, fair usage limit 100 messages per month
(* Alarm activations only)
Voice dialler notifications
Monitoring to Central Station
(GSM-SC Only)
Loss of connectivity reported to central station
(GSM-SC Only)
Loss of connectivity to site detected within 90 min

Commercial

Standard - €10.99 per month (Incl. VAT)
Managed World SIM
Unlimited App control + notifications
SMS control + notifications, fair usage limit 100 messages per month
(* Alarm activations only)
Monitoring to central station
(GSM-SC Only)
Loss of connectivity reported to central station
(GSM-SC Only)
Loss of connectivity to site detected within 20 minutes

Premium - €17.99 per month (Incl. VAT)
Managed World SIM
Unlimited App control + notifications
SMS control + notifications, fair usage limit 200 messages per month
(* Alarm activations only)
Voice notifications
Monitoring to central station
(GSM-SC Only)
Loss of connectivity reported to central station
(GSM-SC Only)
Loss of connectivity to site detected within 10 min

:eek::eek::eek::eek:

TOMs WIFE

bk wrote: »

Basically the amount of time it takes for an alarm company to notice that it can't connect to the alarm system in your home and notify you of it.

Basically how all this works is:

Alarm -> Alarm Company Servers -> Your App

Normally if your alarm goes off, it will send a signal to the alarm company over either GSM or IP who in turn notify you of the alarm.

However sometimes that communication link between the alarm and alarm company can fail, either due to a failure or because a thief uses one of various methods to block it. You then wouldn't know if the alarm went off.

To help protect against this, alarm companies will poll (communicate) with your alarm at a certain set interval to check if it is still active and notify you if it sees a failure. That doesn't necessarily say that the alarm triggered, but it does indicate something unusual is up and you can investigate (call neighbours to check, etc.).

Obviously the more frequent the polling the better. Some systems poll every 5 minutes or less, while HKC only seem to do it every 5 hours, which is poor.

Can someone confirm my understanding of above - polling has nothing to do with being notified that your alarm has gone off? It's just for the (unlikely) event that the link between you and them has been cut? So, apart from that scenario, you will get an immediate alarm notification when it goes off, regardless of polling times?

Can you have the HKC system directly notifying you (wifi) without any need for any link (gsm?) to HKC themselves?

thanks.

kub

TOMs WIFE wrote: »

Can someone confirm my understanding of above - polling has nothing to do with being notified that your alarm has gone off? It's just for the (unlikely) event that the link between you and them has been cut? So, apart from that scenario, you will get an immediate alarm notification when it goes off, regardless of polling times?

Can you have the HKC system directly notifying you (wifi) without any need for any link (gsm?) to HKC themselves?

thanks.

You can always get a HKC GSM unit with a pay as you go SIM in it, that unit will text you directly when your alarm has activated and you can control the system via text.


As regards whether the other HKC unit, the HKC GSM/Wifi, this will connect to the HKC server and it is this that your phone is connected to via App.

kub

KoolKid wrote: »

Thats correct. Here are the higher rates...

Premium - €7.00 per month (Incl. VAT)
Managed World SIM
Unlimited App control + notifications
SMS control + notifications, fair usage limit 100 messages per month
(* Alarm activations only)
Voice dialler notifications
Monitoring to Central Station
(GSM-SC Only)
Loss of connectivity reported to central station
(GSM-SC Only)
Loss of connectivity to site detected within 90 min

Commercial

Standard - €10.99 per month (Incl. VAT)
Managed World SIM
Unlimited App control + notifications
SMS control + notifications, fair usage limit 100 messages per month
(* Alarm activations only)
Monitoring to central station
(GSM-SC Only)
Loss of connectivity reported to central station
(GSM-SC Only)
Loss of connectivity to site detected within 20 minutes

Premium - €17.99 per month (Incl. VAT)
Managed World SIM
Unlimited App control + notifications
SMS control + notifications, fair usage limit 200 messages per month
(* Alarm activations only)
Voice notifications
Monitoring to central station
(GSM-SC Only)
Loss of connectivity reported to central station
(GSM-SC Only)
Loss of connectivity to site detected within 10 min

:eek::eek::eek::eek:

Great thank you, it is incredible how popular it is though.

bk

TOMs WIFE wrote: »

Can someone confirm my understanding of above - polling has nothing to do with being notified that your alarm has gone off? It's just for the (unlikely) event that the link between you and them has been cut? So, apart from that scenario, you will get an immediate alarm notification when it goes off, regardless of polling times?

Yes, polling doesn't tell you that the alarm has gone off, just that HKC or other companies cloud service has lost connectivity to the alarm system and perhaps something unusual is up.

I wouldn't say it is that unusual, more skilled burglars will look to disable the comms before trying to break in, so that the alarm company/you/gardai aren't informed and allows them more time to steal things. It isn't particularly difficult to do.

Polling won't tell you that you are being burgled, but it does allow you to check with neighbours to see what is up, etc.

TOMs WIFE

so, if I have a 8/12 panel, and I want wifi/gsm what panel do I need?

KoolKid

TOMs WIFE wrote: »

Can someone confirm my understanding of above - polling has nothing to do with being notified that your alarm has gone off? It's just for the (unlikely) event that the link between you and them has been cut? So, apart from that scenario, you will get an immediate alarm notification when it goes off, regardless of polling times?

Can you have the HKC system directly notifying you (wifi) without any need for any link (gsm?) to HKC themselves?

thanks.

Depending on your broadband provider your phone line or cable could be very vulnerable.
Also bear in mind that the free or cheaper options are the ones offering the much faster polling in such an event, I don't see the logic in the charges posted above.
We use IP /GSM/GPRS for monitoring with polling into central stations where the customer can be contacts in 15 minutes & the charges aren't what they are above.
There a good saying in the industry that would apply here.
"Its better to not need it and have it rather than not have it and need it..

KoolKid

bk wrote: »

Polling won't tell you that you are being burgled, but it does allow you to check with neighbours to see what is up, etc.

But it does give you that extra notification (Smash & grab)if your comms goes down after any alarm event.
A great feature on most good systems.