Off-site CCTV monitoring, 24 hours a day

Off-site monitoring connects your alarm and your cameras to people in another location whose job is to watch them. When the alarm goes off or a camera picks up movement in an area it's watching, the signal goes to them, not only to a siren on your wall or an app on a phone that might be on silent.

It solves a problem a lot of people have without realising it. Cameras get installed, and then nobody actually watches them. The footage sits on a recorder until something goes wrong, and sometimes the recorder has quietly stopped. Monitoring turns a system that records into a system that someone is paying attention to, around the clock.

The difference shows up at the worst moments: at 02:00 when your phone is on silent, or on the third day of a holiday at the coast, when nobody is home to hear the siren.

Before we switch monitoring on, we sit down with you and agree the plan for your property. That covers:

• Who gets contacted, and in what order.
• What counts as a real alarm at your property, and what's normal, like staff arriving early or a gardener on a Tuesday.
• What happens if nobody on the list answers.
• Who can cancel an alarm, and how they prove it's them.

You'll know exactly what to expect before it starts. When your circumstances change, such as going on holiday, taking on new staff or getting a new phone number, tell us and we'll update the plan.

• Your alarm system: indoor sensors, outdoor beams, door contacts and panic buttons.
• Your CCTV cameras, especially the ones covering the gate, the perimeter and entry points.
• Your electric fence, through the alarm panel it's linked to.

Already have an alarm or cameras from another installer? Tell Marco the makes and models. He'll tell you straight whether they can be linked as they are, or what would need to change first.

Homes

Monitoring covers the hours when you can't keep watch yourself: when you're asleep, at work or away for the weekend. Panic buttons let you raise the alarm from inside the house without picking up a phone.

Businesses

Business premises are most exposed when they're empty. Monitoring covers nights, weekends and public holidays, when nobody is in the yard or the warehouse. Some businesses pair it with security guards during working hours; others want both around the clock.

Monitoring is only as good as the signal that reaches it. These are the things we check, and they're also what changes the quote:

• A way for signals to get out. Alarms send signals through a communicator. Cameras need a stable internet connection at the property.
• Backup power, so the alarm and cameras don't go quiet in a power cut.
• Cameras that can see at night, pointed at the places that matter.
• How many cameras and alarm zones are monitored.
• Whether you need new equipment, or whether your existing system can be linked.
• An up-to-date contact list, which costs nothing and matters most. A plan that phones a number you changed last year helps nobody.

Because DBS installs the alarm and cameras and provides the monitoring, there's one company to call when something isn't working. You won't get an installer blaming the monitoring company, or the other way round. And you deal with the owners: Pieter de Bruyn Jr and his son Marco handle every quote and stay your contact. DBS Security is family-owned, PSIRA registered (468853) and has 25 years in the trade.

Ask Pieter or Marco to explain the monitoring terms before you sign anything, and they'll go through them in plain language. Get a free quote for off-site monitoring, or see the areas we cover.