Back to School, Back to Latchkey Kids

 A Latchkey kid or Latchkey child refers to a child who returns from school to an empty house because their parent(s) are away at work. Many of us working parents wait in anticipation for that phone call after 3 pm on a school day confirming our kids are home. How many times have you been left waiting and worrying only to find out your kids forgot to call home or were on the phone when you frantically tried to call home to check on them? Yes, many of us can relate to that situation.

What if you could automatically be notified when someone enters or leaves your house ANDS know who they were? If you have an alarm system you probably already have the basic equipment to do just that.  The latest technology in most alarm monitoring centres allows emails to be sent to your computer or smartphone whenever specific signals are received from your alarm system. The most common application is the transmission of “opening and closing” signals. These signals are transmitted whenever someone “arms or disarms” your alarm and identifies who armed or disarmed the system. For only a few dollars a month this technology can give added peace of mind.  Not sure if you armed the alarm system or not? Just check your email. Of course, all other aspects of the alarm are still monitored by professionally trained operators to react to emergency signals.

If you are looking for even more information, then cameras can be added to your security system and you can actually see your kids coming home after school (and also see who is with them). Cameras can also be a great way to reduce false alarms by using “video verification”.

Huronia experiences earthquake and tornado on the same day

On June 23, 2010  a  tornado did much destruction to the southern area of Midland.The Huronia monitoring station was physically  unaffected by the storm and continued business as usual.

The storm did result in many power failures in the area and although much of the power is now back on, the power failure was quite long and may have depleted the rechargable backup batteries in your alarm system. Therefore, the systems may not automatically  send us a power failure restoral.  We encourage all our clients in the affected area  to have someone do a check of their property to make sure the power was properly restored at their premise.

FAQ

Q. How do I stop my DSC keypad from beeping?

A. Press the # on the keypad

Q. My DSC keypads trouble light is on, what do I do?

A. On most keypads you press *2 and refer to your instruction manual for further information

Q. I can't find my instruction manual?
A.  Go to the "Customer Care" area of our website and there is a section called "User manuals". You can download a PDF from there.

Q. My trouble light indicates a "fail to communicate"

A. Easiest wat to correct this is to send a signal to our monitoring station. Call our station to advise us that you will be testing your alarm system. Then trip a device that causes the system to send a signal. Quite often the keypad panic button  is the easiest to do.  Follow your instruction manual to do this. Quite often you will need to press and hold the buttons for 3 seconds or so. Please have your 4 digit alarm code ready to reset the siren and memory lights afterwards.

Q. My trouble light shows "low battery"

A. Your system will likely have a rechargable battery that will recharge within a couple of days of the power being restored. If the low battery  trouble light is still on after a couple of days contact service to have your battery replaced

Q. My trouble light indicates a loss of clock. How do I fix?

A. loss of clock is usually not critical to the function of your system but to clear the trouble light you will need to set the clock on your system. Please follow below:

To set the system time, enter *6 followed by the mastercode. Press 1. The keypad will now accept 10 consecutive digits.

Enter time in hours and minutes using 24 hr format (00:00 to 23:59)

Enter date in months, days and years (MM DD YY)

Beware of phone fraud. Criminals will pretend to be anyone to seperate you from your $. Even possibly impersonating your alarm company!

Never give personal information over the phone. Call back to a known telephone number to be sure.

Report phone fraud to the police or phone busters at 1 (888) 495-8501.

http://www.phonebusters.com/

Midland Home Show at the North Simcoe Sports and Rec Centre

http://www.midlandhomeshow.ca/

2010 Midland Homeshow booth

May 11th Medic Alert presentation at Georgian Bay Native Friendship Centre

 Huronia Staff supports Big Brother & Sisters in Bowl for Kid's Sake

 and the Amazing Rally

Huronia Supported the Big Brothers and  Sisters Amazing Rally on May 15 

with two particpant teams and a corporate sponsorship.

March 10 Security Symposium in Tay Township, photo courtesy of SnapMidland

New Collingwood Audio Showroom

NOW OPEN!