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An alarm triggers. The monitoring center receives it, follows the call tree and works through the process it has been trained to follow. But the alarm response becomes more complicated when those steps have been exhausted and someone needs to physically get to the property.
Police departments across the US have to prioritize where their resources go, and more cities are changing how they handle lower-priority and unverified alarms. For monitoring centers, that raises a very practical question: if someone needs to physically respond to a property, who gets there?
Police departments have to prioritize emergencies, and an unverified property alarm isn't necessarily going to carry the same urgency as an immediate threat to life or an active crime. In some US cities, that reality is already changing alarm response policies.
During a recent TMA Virtual Product Review, Brandon Smith, AURA's Vice President, US Division, discussed the shift toward verified response and what it means for monitoring centers. He highlighted Seattle as one example of a market where a policy change affected how unverified alarms are handled.
When law enforcement needs more information before dispatching resources, someone may still need to establish what is actually happening at the property. That puts physical response firmly into the conversation for monitoring centers, alongside detection and monitoring.
For monitoring centers, that means thinking about the physical response part of the alarm journey as well as detection and monitoring.
As Brandon put it during the webinar:
"AURA gives the monitoring center the option to dispatch a licensed security responder to the property. The responder can establish what is happening on site and, if the situation requires law enforcement, provide information from the scene to support the next step."
That responder can establish what is happening on site and, where the situation requires law enforcement, provide information from the property to support the next step in the response.
The idea is to add guard response without asking monitoring centers to change the way their operators already work.
In the webinar, Brandon demonstrated what that looks like from dispatch through to completion:
"But even if you're in cities today, in markets today where you're not feeling that effect yet, try and look ahead and think of the future."
His point was simple: you don't want to start figuring out your response options after the policy in your market changes.
There are already plenty of ways to respond when an alarm triggers. Some properties have on-site guards or mobile patrols, while video monitoring gives operators much better visibility into what is happening and can sometimes deter an intruder altogether.
But, as Brandon asked during the webinar, what happens when the visual deterrent doesn't work?
If someone stays on the property, the monitoring center may need more than visibility. It may need someone there.
There is no additional hardware required, and AURA does not ask monitoring centers to redesign established operating procedures around the service.
Dispatching a responder isn't much use if the monitoring center then loses sight of what happens at the property.
The responder receives the incident information through the AURA app, along with any tasks that need to be completed on site. Photos and other information can be captured as part of the response, so the monitoring center has a record of what happened.
AURA's control center manages that process. If, for example, a required photograph isn't clear enough, the team can follow up while the responder is still at the property rather than discovering the problem after the response has been completed.
Activity is timestamped and geo-marked, with the relevant incident information captured as part of the response. Monitoring centers can see what happened at the property and share that information back with dealers and customers.
"We're not a monitoring center, and we're not competing with you… We're not a replacement for law enforcement. We know our spot."
If a licensed security responder identifies an immediate threat to life or property, the incident can be escalated to law enforcement. There is then someone physically at the property who can provide information about what is happening.
The monitoring center continues to monitor. Law enforcement handles incidents requiring police intervention. AURA provides the guard response layer when someone needs to physically attend the property.
For a monitoring center, offering physical response across multiple markets comes with a practical problem: you need the network to deliver it.
That means sourcing guarding companies, managing those relationships and having enough coverage that you're not dependent on a single provider being available when an alarm comes in.
AURA aggregates capacity from more than 100 guarding companies across the US. At the time of the webinar, Brandon said AURA had around 24 major US markets where the team was confident in its response coverage, typically with four or five guarding companies available in each.
Rather than simply dispatching whichever responder is geographically closest, AURA uses location and live traffic information to identify the fastest available responder.
At the time of the webinar, AURA's national average response time was approximately 18 minutes, against a 30-minute service-level agreement, with the team working toward maintaining an average below 20 minutes.
Coverage can also expand with customer demand. When a monitoring center needs response in a market AURA does not yet cover, Brandon explained that its operations team can work to build the market, typically within 30 to 45 days.
For monitoring centers, that means adding physical alarm response capability without adding hardware, headcount or the work involved in building and managing a guard network themselves.
There's a commercial side to this too. On demand guard response becomes another service monitoring centers and dealers can offer their customers.
AURA uses an unlimited-response model with a flat monthly fee per address and separate pricing for commercial and residential properties. Monitoring centers can decide how that capability fits into their own customer offering.
Brandon described it as "another menu item": something that can support customer retention while creating an opportunity for additional recurring revenue.
For dealers, it provides access to a physical response capability without requiring them to source and manage that capability themselves.
The technology installed at a property remains important. But as the alarm response landscape changes, customers may increasingly want to know what happens when that technology detects something and somebody needs to get there.
Response policies are not identical across the US, and monitoring centers will not experience these changes in the same way or at the same time.
That is precisely why it makes sense to think about the response gap before it becomes urgent.
The aim isn't to replace existing alarm response processes or divert incidents that belong with law enforcement. It is to make sure there is an appropriate physical response option when a property needs to be attended, particularly as verification becomes a greater part of the response landscape.
For AURA, that role is deliberately focused: provide the licensed security response, manage it from dispatch to completion and give the monitoring center visibility into what happened.
The alarm still starts with the monitoring center. AURA helps answer what happens when someone needs to get there.
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