Bill isn't home, he's fifty miles away and his house is being burgled. Thieves forced his kitchen door open and are now helping themselves to all the valuables they can carry.

Bill has a burglar alarm and it's pumping out a 110db wailing noise. It even has a flashing blue light to attract attention. But everyone is ignoring it on Bill's street because...well... alarms go off all the time. There are people actually walking past the house while the crooks are at work. Several hours later, the Police call Bill to tell him the news.

This scenario is no exaggeration and it seemed crazy to us. Because, ironically, the person who needed to be first to know about the burglary - Bill - was actually the last. Conventional alarms tell lots of people who don't need to know. They are impersonal and irritating. Part of the background noise of everyday life.

It struck us that there are already existing technologies that could be harnessed to change this scenario - namely broadband internet and the mobile phone. Broadband is always on and, when linked up to some clever sensors, can be turned into a 24 hour a day messenger.

Put another way, it's a great distributor of alerts. For example, a sensor on Bill's door could have triggered an alert sent by a broadband box. And the mobile is ubiquitous and always close to hand, making it an ideal receiver of alerts

A very interesting idea... I'm interested to see how you implement it.

When do you plan to launch?

We'll be launching a more informative version of our website in a month or so. Our initial focus is the UK, and early customers of our first limited launch will be getting their kits from then and throughout the autumn. We'll be launching nationwide at the end of the year.

Thanks for spotting the blurb on our website though!

 

We've been playing with Tangler along with other technologies and systems which could enable us to interact with our customers... it's just a case of working out what is best suited for us as a business, as well as serving our users well.

I suspect that we'll use something else for "official" customer contact/support, but personally I'd quite like something chatty like this as an informal channel

Yeah, Tangler is good for getting to know your members better, and finding out what they really want/need.

Look forward to seeing AlertMe in action!

This looks really cool! I could see this being extremely popular. I'd love to see the price and more info about the project. My family might be seriously interested in purchasing a kit.

You can find the price and other details on our website now, at http://www.alertme.com . We are launching properly in January.

If you are a friend of one of our staff we may be able to find you a place on our controlled release this autumn; in which case email one of us!

I see you are in the US, though, in which case you may have a wait; we are initially just selling within the UK. But do sign up on our website, and we will keep you informed as to where the system is rolling out, when

I don't see the actual price on your site. I see that it is "40%-80% lower". But this is probably something that should be in an FAQ or Buy Now section.

Ah, fair enough - our shop site isn't live yet. Anyway, our brochures say £399 for the Kit, plus £10 per month for the service.