There are many cost saving options advertised for home or business telephones.  Many of these providers are not compatible with your alarm system however.  If you are thinking of changing telephone providers please contact our office BEFORE you make a change. We will be happy to tell you if the new provider is or is not compatible with your alarm system and potentially save you a lot of trouble.

Have you had to pay a fine for false alarms or want to learn what false alarms are and how to avoid them?  The Portland Police Bureau Alarm Administration hosts an interactive class that educates alarm owners about some of the main causes of false alarms and how they can easily be prevented.  The course is FREE and available to all our customers but registration is requested.  Classes are hosted on the third Thursday of every month.  To register for the class please contact the Portland Police Bureau Alarm Administration at (503)823-0031, or email their office at alarms@portlandoregon.gov.  Please also remember to bring photo identification.

“Around 6:30 a.m. Sept. 17, [Frederick] Hayes, 57, and his wife, Margaret “Maggie” Hayes, 56, confronted an intruder in their home in the 900 block of Atwater Road, which sits in an unincorporated pocket completely surrounded by neighborhoods officially in the city limits[of Lake Oswego]. Hayes was killed in the ensuing struggle. Maggie Hayes ran and was not injured. She called 9-1-1.”
Quotation from www.oregonlive.com

As most people in the Portland area are aware of this headline news, we at Phillips want to take this moment to educate people and hopefully help others prevent something like this from happening again.

People with alarm systems are up to four times less likely to be burglarized. If your alarm system is armed every time you leave your home, even if you are leaving for just 15 minutes, you and the authorities will be notified by our monitoring center if there is an intruder.

There are many options available to every alarm but the most important thing is to arm your system every time you leave your home, and in some cases you may want to arm your system while at home as well.

Want to do away with expensive mandatory landlines you can only use for your commercial fire alarm?  Now you can!  We now offer a cellular communicator that is certified for reporting emergency signals to our central station.

This new cellular device has been tested and certified by UL, NFPA 72 and the City of Portland’s Fire Marshal’s Office as an alternate means of communication for your fire alarm system.  This device checks in multiple times a day to verify that in the event of an emergency, the communication path is operational.  For more information please call our office and a sales consultant will be happy to inform you of all possible options available.

Phillips is making an effort to be more eco-friendly.  We are now making a push to educate our customers about our paperless option.  We have the ability to email you your bills, thus reducing the consumption of paper and making it accessible to you anywhere you have internet access.  In addition to this, many of our customers are also using online bill payer through their bank.  This allows you to pay your bills without writing a check.  Instead, your bank issues a check for the amount you designate and they mail it to us.  Usually this is a no charge service provided by your bank.

While on vacation relax with the piece of mind that comes with the ability to look in on your home or business from anywhere in the world.  Our new IP camera system allows you to have up to 4 cameras placed anywhere you have a regular electrical outlet.  If you don’t like the view from one location you can easily move it to any other location near another electrical outlet.

This stand alone camera system is as easy to use as your email account.  With remote monitoring and digital recording you get all the advantages of a commercial grade DVR without the mess or headache.  Once set to your preference, the iSEE video system will automatically record motion during a set time schedule and send you an email alerting you that there has been motion captured by your camera.  Simply log in to your account and you can view your ten second video clip of that event.  Or you can activate your cameras for live viewing of your home or business to see what is happening at that moment.

How the iSEE video system works is the cameras transmit the video information over your existing electrical system using Ethernet Over Power (EOP) technology.  This allows you to place your cameras with extreme ease anywhere you have an electrical outlet.  At your broadband internet modem we connect the “G box” to both your modem and an electrical outlet which receives the video information from the camera and transmits your video images to our monitoring center for storage while still upholding your fire walls and internet protection.

To use this system all it needs is an existing electrical system and a broadband internet modem running at 256kbps or higher.

The basic system includes, one camera with EOP Transceiver, One G box with EOP Transceiver, And an iSEE video account with 50MB of storage, and unlimited use of live view of your cameras.

Its that time of year again to make sure you and your alarm is ready for the fowl weather.  Here are a few important questions to help you prepare:

Do you know where your AC transformer is?

Do you know how long it has been since you replaced your standby battery?

Do you know where your master control panel is located and how to open it?

Do you know where your alarm system connects to your telephone line?

Do you know how to change or delete arming codes from your on-off keypad?

Have you had your monitored smoke detectors cleaned and tested in the last year?

Your standby battery has a 3-5 year life span and if it has been completely drained due to extended power outages it may not be able to recharge.  If you have a monitored smoke detector it is recommended by the fire martial to have your detectors cleaned annually and to have them replaced every 10 years.  If you are unable to answer any of the questions above or think your system may need testing you may want to consider taking advantage of our offer to our existing customers printed on the back.

Due to popular demand we have continued our special on the cellular option.  Cutting of telephone lines is a tactic we are seeing more of in the Portland metro area.  We also find more and more people wish to do away with expensive land lines. 

There are two possible solutions for those of you concerned with landlines. 

1. 1.    Phillips Electronics can add a primary cellular communicator eliminating the need for a landline

Master Gram Special price…………………………..$235.00

(Regular price $285.00)

Increased monthly fee…………………………………$12.00

1. 2.    Phillips Electronics can add a backup cellular communicator that will automatically transmit information via cellular network if landlines are inoperable.

Master Gram Special price…………………………..$375.00

(Regular Price $425.00)

Increased monthly fee…………………………………$12.00

Recently Utah based companies have resumed their door to door sales programs in the Portland metro area.  Their salesmen are largely college age and make many false claims.  Without inspecting systems these salesmen make claims regarding the age and quality of protection.  They have also been known to make false claims such as stating your existing alarm company has gone out of business, that there have been recent break-in’s in your neighborhood, or that they are affiliated with the city’s fire and police departments.

One of these companies has been fined by the Oregon Attorney General, John Kroger, for “truly outrageous conduct”.  If you are confronted with these people please be reassured they are not affiliated with Phillips Electronics or the police/fire departments in any way.  If you are unsure about anyone knocking on doors in your neighborhood it is recommended you call the police and report them.

Tualatin Valley Fire and Rescue now requires monitoring companies to attempt verification of all fire alarm signals, residential and commercial, as per Tualatin Valley Fire Code ordinance 10-02.  In an attempt to reduce false alarms, this ordinance requires us to make a phone call to the premises prior to dispatching the fire department.  If we reach someone on the premises and verify the existence of a fire, the fire department will be dispatched without any further delay.  If we are not able to contact anyone or verify there is a fire we will dispatch the fire department but the fire department will first dispatch a vehicle to verify the existence of a fire before dispatching the fire trucks.