Self Monitoring vs Professional Monitoring

If you want to view your CCTV system’s live stream whilst on-the-go, there are many applications designed for iPhones, iPads, and Android devices that allow you to do so. Although these apps are certainly a welcome supplement to professional monitoring, it would be a mistake to assume that they are an effective substitute.

This begs the question – Self Monitoring vs Professional Monitoring – what’s the difference?

• Self monitoring apps of this kind tend to function by informing you of activity via an email notification sent to your device, the drawback to this being that you might only become aware of any activity hours after it has occurred.
• These apps are also prone to errors, often failing to display live images despite a working connection, as well as being generally slow to respond.
• Most apps do not make use of any crime-preventative measures (beyond the livestream itself), and those that do claim to come equipped with deterrents are less than adequate.
• Remote monitoring apps do not protect your system from hackers and tech-savvy criminals, whereas PSM’s technical department ensures that your digital defences are always watertight.

By comparison, PSM’s remote monitoring service provides you with immediate notifications of any activity: our operators will contact you directly by phone call, whilst also issuing audio warnings in response to intruders to deter the activity before it develops. Also, should a genuine loss of connection occur, PSM’s operators will inform you according to your preferences.

Furthermore, PSM’s operators issue both live and prerecorded audio warnings as soon as they are necessary; these have been demonstrated to be the most effective deterrent against criminal activity. This way, PSM takes an active and dynamic role in preventing and driving away threats to your property, as opposed to a self monitoring app, which is inactive and static. To elaborate, the latter relies on the sole judgement of the user, and its efficacy is dependent on how much time the user is willing to spend looking at it—whereas the former maintains constant efficiency 100% of the time, thanks to a dedicated and experienced team.

For a monitoring app to be half as effective as professional monitoring, the user would be required to engage with the app’s livestream at all hours, every day, which would be highly impractical for the majority of users. Even then, unlike professional monitoring, remote monitoring apps do not have the functionality to issue deterrents in the event a crime in progress, and the system would still be left vulnerable to malicious software attacks.