In Parks Associates’ new research, “Quantified Consumer: Alerts and Alarms: Consumer Perceptions of Security Event Management,” 48 percent of security system owners report that their system triggers too many false alarms. The research explores consumer attitudes, preferences, and experiences in security event management among households with professional monitoring.

“False alerts generate fines and frustrations for users,” said Chris White, senior analyst, Parks Associates. “False alerts, caused by harmless factors like children or pets, can devalue the security system in a number of ways. Users can get in the habit of ignoring or disabling triggers. Resulting fines from unnecessary runs by a city’s emergency responders, which are on average nearly $150, also add to the cost of owning the system.”

Parks Associates finds 62 percent of security owners report their system triggered at least one false alarm in the past 12 months. Among them, the majority paid a fine, although there are some state- and municipality-led initiatives to fine security providers instead of home dwellers for false alarms. Many also require some form of prior verification of a real emergency before contacting emergency responders. While the security industry has successfully lobbied seven states so far to pass laws banning local municipalities from fining security providers, the best outcome for all is to reduce and ultimately eliminate false alarms.

“The development and integration of AI and video verification solutions are important initiatives in the industry to reduce false alarms and obviate the need for such laws,” White said. “Monitoring providers like Rapid Response Monitoring and Noonlight increasingly use AI-powered video verification to verify an alert is real before the alert is sent up to monitoring personnel, which is helping to drive ever lower priced monitoring services. Noonlight provides monitoring for Wyze and Canary security products for just $10 per month to the end user.”

For more information, visit the Parks Associates website.