The Future of Mobile Computing

 

What if you could have access –in the palm of your hand - to customer information and alarm history and be able to put accounts on test and view signals live as they are received at the central station?  What if it only cost about $10.00 per month more than you already pay for a cellular phone?  It may surprise you to know that these features are already available at Central One.

Central One – The Strongest Link in Security Monitoring

Central One maintains its leadership in security monitoring technology by announcing support for mobile internet devices carried by alarm installing dealers and their technicians.  Three web pages will be added featuring support for web enabled phones, Blackberry and other hand held devices.

The first two web sites are available for use at this time:

www.centralone.com/techinqy permits technician inquiries.  Simply log in and submit an account number to display the subscriber’s name, main and alternate phone numbers, last signal date, panel type, address, directions and some account attributes on your mobile device.  Only employees and technicians with “full menu access” can use this feature.  If you don’t know the account number simply enter a name and a list of matching subscribers with account numbers will appear.  You can even speed dial the subscriber’s main telephone number by pressing the soft key labeled “dial” on your phone.  Account attributes include the panel type and whether the account is inactive, UL, or NFPA.

www.centralone.com/techhist permits alarm history display.  Simply log in and submit an account number to display a limited (twenty signals or the past ten days) alarm signal history on your mobile device.

The login sequence for the mobile web will be the familiar FaxBack login sequence of dealer number, employee number and pin.  These three fields may be separated by an asterisk or (if your mobile device makes only digits available) you may enter ddddeepppp where dddd is your four digit dealer number, ee is your two digit employee number and pppp is your four digit pin.

For example, to log in as dealer 100, employee 8, pin 0132 you may enter either “100*8*0132” or “0100080132”.

Nextel (and possibly other) cell phones display the login prompt and immediately go to the “alpha” mode where the numbers that you press create letters instead of digits.  This is fine because the web site knows how to translate each letter to the appropriate number for login validation.  For example, if your login should look like “0123089555” it would be acceptable to log in with 01ad0twjjj”.  The web site simply saves you the step of switching from “alpha” to “num” mode before entering your login.

If you wish you may bookmark the web site and store your login in the URL as follows:

www.centralone.com/techinqy?login=100*8*132

Storing your login does pose a manageable security risk.  You must keep track of your cell phone or mobile web device at all times and change or delete your pin if it goes missing.

The third site will be available soon.  This site will permit you to clock in and out of accounts and view the signals that were received while the account was on test.  It is complementary to the FaxBack system.  In fact, it is interchangeable so you can put an account on test with a mobile web device and take it off with fax back and vice versa.  The login sequence will be the same as the first two sites, above.  Employee activity reports will include mobile web transactions the same as FaxBack transactions.

All three of the new web sites will function nicely on standard browsers even though they were designed with the mobile device in mind.

Please let us know what technology you would like to hold in the palm of your hand.  Central One values input from its dealers so send an email to let us know exactly what you would like to see.

 

If you are using the Motorola I90c Nextel phone, click here for a complete step by step walk through of the set up and usage of these sites.