SIM card & monitoring station

Let’s start with the SIM card

The Hub is normally wired to your router to provide Internet. If your internet doesn’t work at home, the SIM card can take over its task. In the Netherlands, the Internet at home almost always works, so in our opinion a SIM card is not necessary.

Even without a SIM card, the system will warn you immediately if your fixed Internet connection at home doesn’t work and therefore notifications will arrive later, thanks to the connection your phone has with the cloud!

So even without internet at home, you will be informed immediately that the connection is down, and your alarm system will continue to work normally.

Fact: In the Netherlands, a fixed internet connection is normally offline for a few seconds at most! If the internet at home works normally, the sim card is not used, and it is therefore unnecessary to pay for it.

What is an M2M SIM card?

There are many providers that say you always need a special M2M SIM card for the Hub. M2M stands for machine to machine. This means nothing more than that you can only send data with these SIM cards and you can’t make calls with them.

These M2M SIM cards are always more expensive and come with a smaller data bundle than a SIM card from a random provider like SIMYO.

Every simcard from any provider works in the Hub.
So if you want a SIM card from any provider, just choose the cheapest one!

The only thing you need to pay attention to is whether the provider in question supports the network the Hub works on. The Hub 1 and Hub 2 only have a 2G connection.

The Hub 2 Plus has multiple antennas including 4G / LTE, so with this Hub 2 Plus you never have to worry that a random provider no longer sends the right signal. With the other Hubs, we advise you to choose a provider that supports the 2G network.

How much does a SIM card cost in the Hub

Now that you know that every SIM card is suitable, it makes sense to buy a SIM card at the source, and not at an alarm system vendor, because an extra link in the chain means extra costs, because that link also wants to earn something. (And that every month)

The source of a simcard is, as everybody knows, the network provider itself.

So it’s a good idea to check the tariffs of the providers in the country where the system will be installed. The subscription with the smallest data bundle is sufficient, as the AJAX system uses very little data.

If you are looking for a sim card for your holiday home in Spain, or for a permanent stay in Spain, you can get an even cheaper sim card at simyo.es because there you get 100MB for only 1,00 euro per month.

PLEASE NOTE: An M2M simcard as offered by an alarm system vendor has an average data bundle of only 10MB, and if you use more than that you will have to pay extra.

How much data does a Hub use per month?

An average system uses 35MB of data per month. The SIM cards offered by alarm system vendors often come with an insufficient data bundle, so you have to pay extra every month. Never buy a SIM card from an alarm system vendor, but directly from the provider.

Summarized

If you have a fixed internet connection at home, the SIM card will only serve you for a few seconds. Even without a SIM card, you will be warned about an internet failure at home and you can take action. Decide for yourself if you find it worthwhile to pay a monthly fee for this. We don’t think so.

Monitoring station

By default, all notifications from your alarm system arrive on your own smartphone, and possibly the phones of your housemates or family. In response to incoming notifications, you take action yourself, such as calling the police. Or you can have another family member do this. The number of people who can receive burglar alarms is unlimited.

All notifications from your alarm system arrive on your smartphone so you can immediately take appropriate action.

If you are not able to respond to burglary alarms yourself, and neither are your housemates or other family members, it can be interesting to pay a monthly fee for a monitoring station.

A monitoring station responds to almost every report. We say almost because there are rules about when a monitoring station can call the police. If only one detector detects movement, the owner will always be called first, before the police. Only if several detectors are activated within a certain period of time, or if security camera images are viewed, can the monitoring station immediately call the police.

Is a monitoring station interesting for you?

For most households, an alarm centre is not interesting because they are quite capable of calling the police themselves. After all, you know best whether there is someone in your home at a certain time or not. You know this better than a complete stranger working at an incident room.

The need for a monitoring station therefore depends very much on your profession and self-reliance. As long as someone can respond to incoming calls, a monitoring station is unnecessary.

Note: Often there are lower rates for the first few months to persuade people to choose this extra “service”. After this free or cheap period, you will pay more for a service that you often do not need, or are better off not having.

There are also often extra conditions attached to the monitoring station subscription in the form of a maintenance contract for your system.

Don’t fall for this: AJAX is very capable of checking itself for proper functioning. Everything is checked automatically every 12 seconds. All you have to do is respond to low battery messages and replace them.

You don’t need an expensive maintenance contract for this, you can do it all yourself…!