I haven’t talked about home security systems for a while. There’s a reason for that.

The security world is changing, but not that much. It’s never been an industry that’s big on gimmicks, nor will it ever be. If you want an alarm installed in your home, it’s typically because you’ve been personally affected by a break in or criminal and are looking to add that peace of mind to your domicile.

You don’t care about bells and whistles… you just want to be safe.

The reason we haven’t focused on alarms is because our main supplier, DSC, is in a transitional state with it’s panels and we needed time to get used to it’s newest offering.

If you know anything about DSC, you know that they hang their hat on the Power Series set of alarm panels. These panels have been their staple offering since the late 80s. From the PC2550 to the PC1832/64, we’ve used each and everyone one of these devices since we first started putting in alarms.

Recently, we were informed that DSC was eliminating support for these long-used devices. In a move that makes complete sense to us, they are narrowing the power series line down to one multi-purpose offering.

This was a tad disconcerting at first. In our experience, manufacturers don’t like leaving backwards-compatibility on the table when they upgrade their product line. It appears, however, that our concern was needless.

The DSC Power Series NEO not only supports all of the old devices, it leaves all of your old functions on the table while adding some new ones. Most of the older systems we have out there are 100% compatible with the new panel. Those will only require keypad upgrades and panel swaps to continue to work exactly as they do now. That said, translating any wireless devices to the NEO from the old power series is not always possible. We’ll still need to assess what you have to do this properly.

The panel itself has a onboard cellular communicator. It lacks a connection for a POTS line, but is capable of two-way communication over data, same as the Alula Bat-Connect.

The communicator itself comes with a smartphone app that allows similar remote control to the Alula, with one glaring difference;

The Alula can direct it’s signals to your phone without needing a monitoring station. The Neo MUST be monitored for it’s App to work. Additionally, the Aula will seek out and connect to the strongest cellular signal in the area. The NEO will pick one provider and remain tied to it.

In other words, certain areas REQUIRE an Alula system, simply based on it’s cellular capability.

Of course, if GSM monitoring isn’t your thing we can try to monitor over an internet connection as well. It’s not our preferred method and comes with no cost bonus, but as always our communication method is purely up to you.

If you want to know more about NEO, check out DSC’s Website . Considering Alula as your main security? They’re here .

If you don’t know which one would suit you better, give us a call and we’ll go over your best option. As always, quotes are free and word of mouth is invaluable. Let us know how we did on our H&B Security Centre | Facebook page. Alternatively, contact us on our website hbsecurity.com . No matter how you get in touch, we’ll get you started.