I wanted to offer my 2 cents since this forum almost scared me away from the DS7000. I started looking into security systems 2 months ago for a couple of reasons. We live in Florida and have little ones and my wife is also worried about predators breaking in at night and swiping our children as what happened to Jessica Lunsford a few years back, at first I dismissed the idea so I wouldn't have to pay all of that money for my wife’s paranoia and then I reconsidered when some punk teenage kids were breaking into houses on our street during the day while people were at work. Their tactic was simple; one guy knocks on the front door. If somebody answers they ask for a random name that is supposed to live there and walk off like they are at the wrong house. If no one answers they go to the back and lift up the sliding glass doors and wiggle them loose, set the door aside and walk in without any noise. Then they cart off with your laptop, stereo, TV, and any jewelry/money lying around. For those of you with sliding glass doors, I would try to "break in" to your house...you will be amazed at how easy it is...I was. I made it much more difficult by drilling 2 holes for each door, left and right and getting decent sized screws that will not bend. I screwed the screws in just enough so that the door would still slide, but if you tried to lift it off of the track it wouldn't budge.
My next step was to look for a security system. I started with the obvious companies, ADT, Brinks etc... Most of them wanted roughly $200-300 to install and a 2 year service agreement at anywhere from $20 - $40 per month. Too steep for me...plus they were only offering like 3 contacts, front door, back door and a window. I would have paid more for contacts at the rest of the windows. I researched several do-it-yourself security systems and the DS7000 was the best bang for the buck. I read all of the posts on this forum and was on the fence about getting it based on the number of negative posts on this forum. In the end, the price was the big factor for me and I rationalized that most of the problems that users are reporting, I could live with since I just wanted a basic alarm to scare away the punk teens.
I got a deal on a basic 10 sensors, remote control, mini-power horn etc...kit for $99, and I also purchased 2 add on deals, one with 7 extra sensors and a big power horn, the other was a buy one power horn get 2 free (I made this decision since most people said that the basic console is not loud enough). In all I spent about $210 and covered 15 doors and windows (my whole house) + 2 spares, and a motion detector for the living room where my TV/Stereo is, 4 large power horns, 1 mini-power horn. It also came with one light module, big red panic button, 6 keychain remotes, and sign and window stickers. Not a bad deal in my opinion, considering what the big guys charge.
The good: Ordering was easy. Installation was actually much easier than I thought it would be. Just a couple of screws for each sensor and I used the double sided tape for the contacts instead of screwing them in. My initial worry was that my front door had a huge gap from the door to the frame...half inch...and that the door contact wouldn't work right because it was too far away. The sensor (to my surprise) worked perfectly. Also to my surprise, everything in the kit works great. Not one bad sensor or remote or motion detector. I didn't have to RMA anything and I went into it thinking that I would have to RMA a few based on all of the reviews. (I did have to "fidget" with the batteries on several sensors to get them to work right, but that is minor). The motion detector says that it needs to be placed at 6 feet of height. I have enormous 14 ft ceilings and I mounted it on a beam right at 13 feet and it works just great. It even will go off if someone is outside on my Lanai right at the sliding glass door in back (about 12-18 feet away from the motion detector)...perfect to scare off the punk teens before they even try breaking in. The added power horns make the alarm system quite loud inside the house and I placed 2 in the garage to make it louder outside. Very loud and annoying to anyone in the house and actually causes my 2 toddlers to cry. My neighbors can hear it just fine if they have their windows open (not so much if everything is shut), anyone walking on the sidewalk can hear it...good enough for me. The multitude of keychain remotes allowed me to just one next to the garage door opener for my wife and then I handed one to my neighbors whom I trust to be able to turn off any false alarms while we are away.
The bad: The borderline pornographic website that you order from almost made my wife not want to get the system. I disregarded the sign (looks too cheesy), stickers, panic button, and light module (I have the fancy new Al Gore bulbs and they only dim, not blink). Probably because of an un-even seam in my door, 2 of the contacts on my sliding glass doors fell off in the middle of the night waking everyone up and scaring the crap out of us. Simple fix was to screw them in instead of relying on the tape. All the other contacts are fine so that is why I think the uneven seam caused them to fall off. I use Vonage so I knew ahead of time that my dialer wouldn’t work so I didn’t even bother hooking it up. In my opinion, 99% of the opportunistic burglars out there are going to be scared away by the alarm (they don’t know if it’s monitored or not), and the ones that aren’t scared off are probably professional and would know how to circumvent any alarm anyway. Even if I got the call and called police they would probably take forever to get there. My friend had ADT and when I went to his house to cut down a tree in his backyard I tripped the alarm trying to enter the garage door. It took the cops like 25 minutes to show up…so I wasn’t too impressed. The burglars had enough time to clean the place out and be gone and he was paying $40 a month!
All in all, I am very happy with the system. My wife finally has some piece of mind at night and when she leaves the house. Is it the best out there? No. Is it worth the money? I think it was well worth the small amount of money I paid.
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Topic: A Positive Protector Plus Review (Read 36885 times)