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May 1, 2007 |
New high-tech systems move home security into new territory
By Trevor Marshall
Jack Smith’s house was broken into sometime between Christmas and New Year’s. What makes this particular break-in different is that Smith is president of the Ottawa-based Canada Safety Council. What makes it similar to many other burglaries is that Smith only added a security system to his house after the break-in.
“I’m in the safety and security business and I’m as guilty as anyone of saying ‘not me,’” Smith said. “If you had asked me a few months ago, I would’ve said ‘Nah,’ because I live in a rural area and nobody’s going to come to my house. I know better, but that’s still the attitude I had up until the New Year. Now, I know that I’d better protect myself and I’ve put in a system.”
Room for one more?
One might be excused for wondering if somebody at Bell Canada was recently burgled. In January, the telecommunications company launched its first security and monitoring solution, Home Monitoring from Bell.
But there were no break-ins; Bell simply believes traditional security solutions are too narrowly focused. They work, but if all goes as the homeowner hopes, they’ll never be used. What’s more, while alarm systems have been around for decades, they are installed in just 20 per cent of households in Canada.
Bell is confident it can use its assets, including the Bell Mobility wireless network, the Sympatico highspeed Internet network and its brand equity, to create a new service for Canadian households, one that combines the value of traditional security functions with new monitoring applications to create a service the other 80 per cent of Canadian homeowners will find compelling.
Home Monitoring from Bell ties a monitoring system to Bell’s Internet and mobile services. Customers use the Internet to set up their system, indicating what types of events should generate alerts. These events could include a child arriving home from school and punching in a personal access code to disarm the security system, an elderly parent failing to activate the motion sensor in the morning, a water or smoke detector being triggered, a thermometer passing a certain threshold, etc. In addition, accessories include sirens, key-fob system controllers, wearable safety devices (featuring panic buttons and fall detectors) and video cameras.
When an event occurs, the system can alert the homeowner, a caregiver, a friend, a neighbour, a house-sitter or other designated contact — and do so by phone, e-mail or text message.
Homeowners can choose to pay $19.95 per month for network access and a personal Web portal that allows them to manage the system themselves. Real-time monitoring — useful for keeping tabs on an elderly relative, for example — costs an additional $10 per month, while video monitoring capability adds $7.95 per month. And for an extra $5 per month, Bell will monitor the system.
“We looked at traditional home security services, at the price points and the value customers were getting out of those services, and it occurred to us that four out of five households in Canada today do not see sufficient value in those traditional security offerings,” said Jeff Crews, vice-president and general manager of Bell Monitoring Services at Bell Canada.
Crews said traditional home security is a $650- million-per-year business in Canada. But he said it’s relatively mature and only growing about five per cent annually. “It’s hard for us to say how big the market is, but certainly we feel very confident in our ability to expand well beyond the market today.”
Technology creates opportunity
That confidence is based on the use of technology to create a market opportunity.
For starters, technology has changed how these systems can be sold and installed. Bell’s solution uses its 1xRTT packet data network to connect various cellular- enabled sensors within the home to a base station, and to connect that base station to the Internet. If the customer chooses the monitoring option, the system is also connected to a central Bell station. This means users can buy the system at a retail location and install it themselves, since there are no wires to run. The base station plugs into a power outlet and automatically registers itself with Bell’s cellular network.
While security is the solution’s foundation, the monitoring functions may, in the end, prove the most interesting. “As we get into the market people will recognize new opportunities in their own lives and we’ll continue to see new applications come up,” Crews said. He noted consumers have already thought of some unusual applications, such as monitoring the temperature in a wine cellar or using a video camera to check whether it’s snowing at the cottage, so the owner knows when to call the person who plows the access road.
Be your own spy
While Bell touts its solution as the evolution of home monitoring, it’s not the only game in town. Those with a do-it-yourself attitude and a bit of computer savvy can set up their own spy organization. All it takes is a trip to the local spy store, said Ursula Lebana, who opened her first Spytech outlet in Toronto in 1991 and now has locations in Ottawa and London, Ont.
“We sell units that connect over the Internet and allow a user to monitor live, via a video camera, their own home from anywhere in the world,” she said. “The units can have up to four cameras and with remote monitoring people can view the cameras over the Internet or from their cellphone if they have Internet access and video capability.”
Market moves
Michelle Warren, senior research analyst at Info-Tech Research in Toronto, said Bell is a new entrant to the home monitoring market and has to provide something innovative. “I think they have to offer something a little bit better. They have to be able to distinguish their product and their service from the competition,” she said. “The market for burglar alarms is already pretty busy, and Bell will probably try to market to people who think they don’t necessarily need a security system, but are looking for a monitoring system. They’re curious about their house, they’re curious about their cottage, they want to know what’s going on with their elderly parents…it’s really taking home monitoring to the next level.”
Warren added that from a business strategy perspective, this move will likely prove beneficial for Bell’s phone business — both fixed line and mobile. “In the face of everincreasing competition from other telephone providers such as Rogers and Primus, this is an opportunity for Bell to further strengthen its presence within the consumer market,” she said. “It helps the home telephone line business and even the mobility side because of (wireless) number portability. The timing for Bell’s home monitoring announcement is very interesting.”
Societal change
The market may be ready, too. Lebana at Spytech noted that while her business has sold monitoring solutions for more than 15 years, the advent of near-ubiquitous highspeed Internet service and high-speed data on cellphones has boosted performance and lowered costs, making these systems more attractive to consumers. “Internet monitoring has become extremely popular.”
Smith at the Canada Safety Council agreed. He said the so-called sandwich generation — people taking care of young kids and senior parents at the same time — only have so many hours in the day, and that makes monitoring a time-saving solution for keeping tabs on family members.
But Smith also pointed out that being watched has become a normal part of living in Canada. “At some point we have to ask, ‘Is this getting invasive?’ but when it comes to a person’s castle I think we want to protect it and know what’s going on.”
Smith said 20 years ago it was unthinkable that intersections would be equipped with cameras to catch people running red lights. “But now, at the risk of sounding Orwellian — ‘Big Brother is watching you’ — there are few places we can go today where we are not under some form of surveillance, be it into a supermarket or department store, or just walking past a bank machine, or even the buildings where we work that now have external cameras mounted on them. Monitoring is really coming of age.”
SIDEBAR
Bell's hardware
Starter Kit
> base unit
> 2 window/door sensors
> one motion detector
> remote key pad
Total: $299
Extras
> video cameras $129.95
> water detector $64.95
> personal safety device $49.95
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