MyAlarm - a trustworthy service?

[Artstar]

Hi all,

I've resigned myself to the fact that there's no such thing as self-hosted monitoring when it comes to IP-based alarms. My mother's 20 year old Ness D16 has given up the ghost (false alarming on zones that I have gone as far as disabling in the panel config) and I've decided to replace it with the Solution 6000, largely for the RFID keyfob over a remote control, and overall greater versatility that it offers, particularly with the graphic keypad (I don't fancy a touchscreen).

I was torn between the 3000 and 6000 in terms of remote support, to be able to help her out from afar but I hear a lot of bad stories from people who've tried to persevere with Bosch's RSC+ app with very poor results. I can't imagine the ALink Plus software would be much better, considering I don't want to just manually monitor but also receive an email alert or similar. I've heard many suggest the iFob service but I've always been dubious about hosting such sensitive services on someone else's server.

I'm guessing it's infeasible to build a self-hosted CMS, so the question then is, as best as anyone can possibly know, how trustworthy is the MyAlarm iFob service? Have there been any stories on the grapevine about security breaches, etc? Call me paranoid, I just want to cover all bases for peace of mind.

Thanks in advance.

[downunderdan]

Have there been any stories on the grapevine about security breaches, etc?.

I've lost count of the number of people who've rung us for a reliable, professionally monitored solution rather than 'monitor it yourself'. Just like cheap insurance policies, that approach is perfectly fine and cheap (or free) until the one time you rely on it. Then you'll realise you've made a terrible, terrible mistake.

Call me paranoid, I just want to cover all bases for peace of mind

There is exactly one base you need to cover.

[Artstar]

Just like cheap insurance policies, that approach is perfectly fine and cheap (or free) until the one time you rely on it. Then you'll realise you've made a terrible, terrible mistake.

Every approach will have its weak points and sometimes, one has to make a compromise under the circumstances. In this case, it's a question of potentially compromising the security of my system being in someone else's hands.

I'm not so much concerned with cheap and cheerful nor attaining the five-nines of reliability. My question here is based purely on security, or more so, privacy. I'm just not a fan of the cloud for these kinds of things, in the same way I don't subscribe to SD-WAN services or cloud-based antivirus software. My only hope here is to have that fear put to rest.

There is exactly one base you need to cover.

I hoped that there would've been more than one way to skin the cat but I realise that's not going to happen. That's why my question here is about the trustworthiness of the MyAlarm cloud-based service and any testimony either way. If you have an answer to that, honestly, I'm all ears.

[secure]

I have no issue with the MyAlarm service. I have a number of clients using it.
It's probably more reliable and secure then using a free service.

[mikey]

I bundle it with monitoring for my clients. Good platform, works well and has been stable for us.

Also handy for remote access to the system with assisted solution link. Lots of advantages, but try never to sell it as a "DIY" monitoring setup, only have 3 clients likes that, they where never going to go for monitoring.

[Artstar]

I do like the fact that it is very reasonably priced, which makes it unjustifiable for me to take the time to write my own software. I have enough projects in and out of work as it is anyway! The good thing I noticed is that it doesn't ask for any personal details beyond a name and a mobile number, so that put my privacy/security concerns to rest, which is what this whole thread was about. So for those of you who responded to my question, thank you most kindly for the encouragement.

Ended up going for the Ultimate plan for now and I'll see if I really need the email and SMS reporting or if I can just scale it back to the one-time fee and rely on the app instead.