The advent of home automation promises an interconnected home that will be easier to manage. Many of these features have been the brunt of jokes: coffee pots with viruses; garbage disposals with user errors; toilets that crash. That said, home automation gives dealers the opportunity to extend more of their existing talents to the home.

Chances are you already install access control and CCTV to commercial accounts. Wouldn’t it be great to offer those same services to residential customers? If, instead, you are a residential dealer, this is a way to learn about the products involved in commercial installations.

Products That Increase the Perception of Safety

Because a security system’s primary function is to serve as a deterrent, its true value may never be known. Homeowners can spend years in a home and have no idea how many break-ins were averted. There is no way to calculate the value of deterring a criminal from a break-in. However, access control and CCTV functionality can add immediately apparent value to a home.

Networked Automation Gives the User Greater Control

Start with any of the various home automation control panels. Network the security system to a PC with Internet access and a proprietary software package from the security system manufacturer. Now the security system is available via a dial-up connection. If you add to that an electronic lock controlled by the security system, suddenly the user can control access to the home while at work or on vacation.

Wireless Technology May Be the Death of the Key

Most of the keyfobs used with home automation systems offer three or four different programmable buttons. Users can dedicate a button to disarming the alarm, one button to opening/closing the garage door and another to opening a door locked with an electronic lock.

Joe Freeman, president of J.P. Freeman Laboratories, says electronic locks will be part of residential security in the future, though “less than 1 percent of access control is residential right now.”

Concerns for the security of RF technology are minimal as most electronic locks and garage-door openers use a digitally encoded signal, which is difficult to capture and reuse.

Use New Technology and Service to Grow Your Business

Freeman suggests that dealers are going to have a substantial opportunity to derive income from installations in the coming years. He says that as recurring monthly revenue (RMR) drops off from account attrition and other factors, dealers will need to make that money up, and one of the best opportunities they will have is through installing integrated systems.

Freeman asserts installing systems integrating a commercial security installer’s usual strengths—security, access control and CCTV—primarily residential dealers can broaden their expertise. A dealer who has installed access control systems in a home may wish to do so for a business.

Turn Home Access Into an Advantage in Sales

Combining access control with the security system and CCTV gives installers a reason to steer customers toward home automation systems. Integrating this group of systems into a larger package gives a homeowner unprecedented control over their environment, increasing their sense of security and, therefore, comfort.

It’s possible that in the near future as more homes feature security systems integrated with electronic “chip locks,” making the process of arming the security system indistinguishable from locking the deadbolt on the front door, false alarms could decrease. If a locked home is an armed home, many users may have an easier time understanding how a security system works. Add to that a greater sense of security and usability and homeowners may believe that a security system is an indispensable tool in homeownership.

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