Guardian Protection

The first rep that came was excellent. He was the actual installer and he was very patient and detailed. He didn't get irritated no matter how many questions I asked. He took his time with me and my husband over the questions that we had, especially on the online system, when we were first setting everything up. I didn’t like the way the cameras were positioned. So he went back up on the ladder and he repositioned it.

Later on, I still had to call because I wanted one changed from the side of the house to the garage, and somebody else came out for that. He was an older gentleman and his ladder wasn’t tall enough. He couldn't get up way high so he couldn’t reach it. But he was really nice and helpful as much as he could. He said he would put in to have somebody else come out. Somebody was supposed to call to come back out and nobody every called. But that was for the second go-around because for the first go-around, the younger guy did everything that I asked him to do.

I like the features in my system. I bring up the app on my tablet and phone. But I noticed that I can't bring up the doorbell on the computer. I can only bring it up on the tablet or smartphone. So when I’m on the computer and I pull up all the cameras live, it pulls up everything, but the doorbell camera. The rep told me that I can bring it up but it won't be live. It will only be video that have been saved throughout the day that triggered the doorbell. But other than that, I like it a lot. It was really nice that Guardian was able to put the alarm on this house. When we go to sleep at night, it is extra security. When my husband’s not home, I can put it on. It is good knowing that I can do that, and if these doors opened up, it would set off the alarm. I like that.

I had another discussion about a month or so ago with an in-office inside sales person. Having read my contract and if it started if I did nothing, the contract would roll over for another five years which is way too long for anything to roll over. But the rep was very helpful in, first of all, agreeing that we would go on a month to month basis when this contract terminated. But we both agreed that probably around April or May of this year, we would discuss various other renewal options for the security system in the house and different products that are now available through Guardian. So it's all very good.

Also, the overall features were great. But one caveat about them is that I just have a very basic, barebones system here. That's really all that I feel that I need, although I am open to further discussion when I talk to the sales folks in April or May. Also, I don’t like the pricing on the system. It's $45 a month, and when I balked at that, almost five years ago when the house was being constructed, I was told that that monthly premium or fee embraced the fact that they were installing a system in the house, and they wanted to amortize it over five years.

I get that, but I came from a home where the billing was about $27 a month because the system had been installed a long time ago and I was on a month to month. The pricing is a bit high, for what other competitors are offering. And when I spoke to the salesperson, I told him that we need to talk about that and we need to see what's available going forward.

And another critique was the system alarm went off one time. I was away and about 650 miles from home. For whatever reason, Guardian called the police before they called me. That was just unacceptable because I had to pay the police for a false alarm. It was at that point that the Guardian rep told me that sometimes, these systems will go off if a fly or a spider is on or moves across the motion detector.

I never knew that and it has concerned me every time I leave this house and I put the motion detector on. So that's a technical issue that we need to talk about going forward because I don’t want false alarms especially if I'm out of state. I don’t want to pay the police to come out here and look at a house that's got a false alarm going on. Even so, any time that I've needed Guardian, they have been available for consultation. They are also very easy to deal with.

About a month ago, we kept getting a low battery alarm on the recorder. My husband frequently travels so the recorder is important. And when I go to bed at night, I like knowing that if somebody comes in, I’m gonna know who it is. I called Guardian about it and the individual that answered the phone asked me if I put a battery in it. I told him that I did not because it was the third time in six weeks and that something was wrong with the unit. He looked back and saw that we had calls and had a service call. He then said that they would have to send somebody up to come out.

The first available date that the rep gave me was 10 days away, but I wasn’t okay with that. 10 days is a long time when you are talking about home protection. But he said that he couldn’t make any appointments for anything other than the first available date. Then I asked to speak to his supervisor, but it was 7 o’clock in the evening. There was no supervisor present and that he was the on-call person. I would have to call back the next day and speak to someone else because it was not acceptable. But before I could call back the next day, a technician called and said that he had an opening. He finished a job on the other side of our neighborhood and he could be there in 20 minutes. He came and he replaced the unit.

I also asked the technician why we kept having the low battery thing. We put the proper batteries in it and it should last for longer than two weeks. He went downstairs and he came back and said that the problem was the communication box. It needs to be located on the first floor, not in the basement. The unit tries too hard to connect with the box, which is what comes to our monitoring center, and it is eating up our batteries. So, he moved the unit up on the first floor in a very discreet location. Everything has been operating wonderfully since. It was the worst experience I’ve had, but it was resolved very easily as soon as I talked to a technician. We have also encouraged other people who are building to have Guardian installed. They offered free installation while we were building the house. And Guardian is the perfect way to go.

One had to be run behind the wall and there was a problem. We had to call an electrician to fix it. I'm not really thrilled with the fact that I tried to get this house prewired so we didn’t have any issues and then we ended up dealing with a whole different system. We had to wait for an electrician to come out and we had to unplug one. The battery backup wore out and when we plugged it back in, it was like tripping all of our systems. We had to have Guardian come back out. It was just a battery replacement but something had to be reset. Everything they quoted us was way less than we really needed or we should have had. So, we ended up paying a lot more for this system install.

My old system was very simple, but in the 15 years that I had it, I didn’t talk to Guardian as much as I talked to them in the three weeks that we had this one here. Some of it is just the new technology but a lot of it went back to the fact that the sales department told me I didn’t need to have this house prewired before the walls were up. But now, we have our pads where we want them although I would have preferred to have all the keypads on the walls and now, I have one sitting on a dresser in the master bedroom. It's okay but it wasn’t nearly as easy as my first experience.

Also, they told us it's $2 more for a paper bill which we would have been getting together at our house. We said we would do the online direct debit or auto-pay. There was one that was supposed to come out and we're supposed to get a notification and I don’t believe I've gotten one. In worst-case scenarios, if it's an issue, we pay $2 more a month which is not that big of a deal. Other than that, everything has been fine since the initial frustration. I would still recommend Guardian. I would tell people if they were building a new house to not let Guardian tell them that they don’t need to prewire and I would tell them to insist.

I also told them that when I’m upstairs in my master’s bedroom, I couldn’t hear the keypad. I asked if there was any way we could add a new keypad to the master’s bedroom and they said they could. I asked what the cost was and they said a hundred bucks. I verified that when people come in to install these stuff, I would only pay 100 bucks and they guys said yes.

Then their guy came out to my house. First of all, he couldn’t really speak English on me. Then he hooked up the motion sensor and then once he’s finished that, he said, “Oh, by the way I don’t have the keypad or the doorbell. I have to go and pick up the keypad.” And I’m like, “Why didn’t you say something earlier?” The guy left my house and they called me back about four o’clock in the afternoon and said that the guy wants to comeback at seven o’clock. I told them, “I have to get up and go to work the next day and you’re gonna finish a wire down my wall to my basement and you come in at seven o’clock at night. Come on, let’s be for real. That ain’t gonna work.”

So they cancelled and rescheduled that appointment because the guy who was supposed to come back the same day never came. Another guy came out and he installed everything, put everything up in the house and asked me to sign a couple documents that I barely see the bottom of that column. The next thing I knew, I got a bill of 475 bucks. I’ve contacted them about it and said that if I knew it was gonna be that much, I would’ve just went with the Link system and did it myself. Also, the equipment that they had were old and could be updated. Their smartphone features couldn’t give a notification when somebody goes in and out. Guardian told me they would have to pull the phone record because everything was recorded. So she caught it and said that they heard what the guy said about the 100 bucks and that they were gonna credit the difference of 400 bucks which they did at the end of the day.

Their app is very helpful. I’m amazed because I've been doing a lot of work around the house, and every time that I touch something, the system tells me that somebody’s tampering with it. We were painting and I removed one of the smoke detectors, and the system doesn’t like that at all. So, I'm learning about the system. It’s just good that you go home and you feel that at least you’re not gonna walk into someone in the house. My wife is home alone more than I want to so it’s good for her to have it. It's my first experience with a home security and so far, so good. And the price is competitive.

Installing our Guardian system was very easy. Their tech came in. He was very professional. He installed the system and showed me that everything was working, and made sure everybody who’s here knew how to operate the system. I did like that, too. He was very courteous and answered all our questions. The experience was really pleasant and easy.

The system is very nice. I really like it. I like the updates of the system, too. The only thing is that they don’t offer a door camera. I do have the automatic lock, which is nice. But I would prefer to have a camera system versus the automatic lock. But other than that, the system is great. I love the way it operates. It's very easy and the keypad is very bright. The siren is very loud and overall, the system is very up-to-date. Guardian’s smart phone features are very good. Every time the door chimes, it’s telling me the system is disarmed or I do get a ping on my phone. I also like that I can actually set it though my phone.

Right now,everything’s been good. The only thing I did have a problem was the motion sensor. I called customer service and they walked me through the troubleshoot, which didn’t work. They had a tech respond very quickly. He came out, went through the system, checked the system, and he showed me what was going on with the motion sensor and I told him I still wasn’t really happy about that. He said, “Look. I’ll just change it out just to be on the safe side.” He changed it out and I was happy with that. I was happy with him. He really knew what he was doing.

I’m also stuck in a contract for five years which bothers me because I believed that our only option was the five-year lease when I found out afterwards that that’s not true. I'm happy with Guardian and happy with the response of it. But I feel like I was cheated. I was definitely misinformed. I’m still paying the same amount. Nobody is changing it. But we’ve had no problem with Guardian in any other way. I’m happy with my system.

Nobody in the state had access to our code, so, I don't know how it got deactivated when nobody was home. That time, I told my mom to get in her car and drive over to my place and check my house. When she got to my place, I unlocked the front door and deactivated the code for her to come in. Nobody was there and so I got on the phone and I just locked the house back up and reset the alarm. Despite that system malfunction, I'm very satisfied with my Guardian system and I've recommended them to other people.

We like the system. When they came and connected the system, we had them install one additional smoke alarm that went directly to them as well because our smoke alarms weren't tied in to their system. Customizing the package was fairly easily done. Not only did we have the extra smoke and carbon monoxide alarm, but we also had an in-law suite and we had an extra electronic lock set up there. My wife uses it as a teaching studio so the students come in with their codes. We have a housekeeper that comes in with a code too, and it all works great.

I’ve probably had Guardian for 20 years and it’s been a good experience. The reps are always very pleasant. Thank heavens, we haven’t really had any trouble. I’m very satisfied with Guardian. It’s kind of our daily routine. I have recommended them at that time to my mother and my daughter now has Guardian.

I finally talked to a manager and told him I was ready to cancel it out. The last man that was out here finally figured out what was wrong. Guardian seemed to finally got the thing. But I wouldn't recommend Guardian. They could improve their service. When I get a problem and we can't fix it, and Guardian sends somebody out here, I don't think I ought to be charged for a person coming out here to fix the problem.

He also put in a call for someone to come the next day to set up the repair. It was very stressful but they did a good job and took care of me. I was very pleased with the service. I have my home with D.R. Horton Homes and it was actually Guardian's system that was in there. Guardian was a better deal too, as far as cost. The guy gave me the list of all the different options and told me that they have a very basic one. I told him that was what I wanted to start with. I'm not into all the technology and being able to turn my life off and on from my phone. So I really just have the basic service and I'm happy with it. It serves its purpose. It does what I want it to do.

I'm single. I just have me and my little dog so I feel much safer having the Guardian system. I don't arm it at night because I have actually set it off before, getting up in the morning, opening the door and letting my little dog out. But I do arm it when I'm gone for work then also if I go somewhere for a weekend. It makes me feel better knowing that I have that extra level of security.

When I refused, I was first told it was In the second contract and when I said there was no such thing mentioned in the second contract, I was told it was the cost of camera and when I said that the camera is not so costly and they can take it, I was told that the first contract for 36 months is the real contract, if I sign it then I have to pay even if I cancel their other contracts. Guys I am not even at my home and moved out but still Guardian will not cancel my service if I don’t pay 750 dollars. I paid for 36 months and still stuck because I installed a new camera. Guys please don’t get stuck like me. It was a bitter experience that I don’t want service and I am penalized for nothing.

I drive customer service crazy ‘cause I can’t keep taking days off for them to come. It used to be that if I saw the guy in the neighborhood and I had a problem, he'd come in. Also, I’m a little disappointed that I'm back up to full price since I got half the first year because they did not want to lose me. Nonetheless, I really like that if I call Guardian for an emergency or something’s wrong, they tell me how to do it. One time, for some reason, I had to leave and I couldn’t set the alarm. They told me to do it through my phone.

When we had the hurricane, the lines went down. My system wasn't working. Though they've been able to fix it, it took me three phone calls to get them to have somebody come here to see what had happened. The last one was when I had an analog line and I switched it over to my fiber optic and connected it. The guy had to come out here and do a connection. That one was done relatively quick and easy, but it cost me $195.

One of my biggest critiques of their offerings is that the smoke, heat, and carbon monoxide units are separate. They would do multiple installations of those multiple units. It would be better if there was just one unit that did all those functions so that way, I have less stuff in my home. The other thing is they use Z-Wave protocol technology and not all of their items appropriately integrate with that just yet. Z-Wave keypad doesn’t interact with Nest or any Wi-Fi. So, you sort of swap into a Z-Wave infrastructure if you want to change the thermostats in your house that hasn’t worked appropriately with your keypad. Something to allow connectivity to different protocols would be helpful.

We’ve had a couple of false alarms, but they’ve always been prompt in calling so I appreciated that. On a day to day basis, we don’t really worry about our security. Guardian is good to have as a monitoring when I activate it. That makes me feel confident when I turn it on at night. If there’s a sensor that goes off, it’s nice to know that it’s active and it’s just another set of eyes. The system is gonna be handy the one time in 20 years when we have a break-in or something real happens, and that’s what you pay all this money for. I’m hoping that if and when it ever happens, that’s when they’re ready to shine.

The features offered in the system is tiered for whatever you wanna spend. I spent a lot and I got what I paid for. I’m not sure that there’s a real difference between any of the providers but for what you’re getting, a lot of the other security providers charge a less significant amount. Also, Guardian locks you in to a long-term contract. They could charge a little less for what they provide and still be in line with the rest.