Honeywell's Rothman: 'Five things dealers need'

LAS VEGAS--During a tour of the Honeywell Security booth on the opening day of ISC West, Ron Rothman, president of Honeywell Security and Communications, enumerated the five things he believes manufacturers need to do to help dealers, "especially during a down economy."

"We need to help them increase their closing ratio, up the average sales price, create RMR, lower labor costs and lower attrition," he said.

"It's good for them, and it's good for us," Rothman said.

New products Honeywell was showing at its booth here help drive those five things, Rothman said. For example, Honeywell's new Wireless Asset Protection Sensors can help dealers "protect assets [from painting to expensive machinery or technology] within a home or business," something that was difficult to do previously because of high costs, complex programming or lots of labor.

The wireless sensors are easy to program and install. A sensor can be affixed to a certain object and programmed so an alert is sent when it is moved or opened, using the same accelerometer technology found in the popular Wii video game. Further, because some objects (a painting for example) should never be moved, the sensor can easily be programmed to be more sensitive than a sensor placed on office equipment, which would be moved for cleaning. 

In addition, when a sensor detects movement or an opening, "it may not be an alarm, it may be awareness. The beauty of it, is that you can decide whether it should be an alarm or awareness," Rothman said. "If you're getting water in your basement, you want to know about it, but you don't want to call the police."

These products, along with new color touchpads, are part of Honeywell's Total Connect products that enable home and business owners to use the Internet, PDA and cellphone to receive alerts and take actions. It can also be integrated with video systems.

"It gets people using their security systems more, which feeds into those five things," he said. When they're using their systems, they're paying their bills. And that lowers attrition.

"It's good for dealers and it's good for us," he reiterated.