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Affiliated to unveil mobile app for dealers, technicians

Affiliated to unveil mobile app for dealers, technicians It�s also exploring ways to monitor 'non-traditional devices'

UNION, N.J.—At its dealer summit in December, Affiliated Monitoring made clear that it was making a concerted push to develop its mobile aspect. The company is about to take another big step in that direction.

Affiliated plans to roll out a new mobile app for dealers and technicians, Daniel Oppenheim, company vice president, told Security Systems News. The app will be officially unveiled at ISC West, where Affiliated will host demos detailing its range of capabilities. In addition, the company is exploring the prospect of incorporating more non-traditional device monitoring into its business model, Oppenheim said.

The new mobile app brings the company's website dealer portal to dealers and installers looking to manage their businesses on the go.

“It puts all the power and functionality of our dealer portal in an app,” Oppenheim explained. “It lets them access information on subscribers and put accounts on test.”

Oppenheim added that the app also offers access to the company's real-stream function, which “gives [dealers and technicians] real-time signals coming in from their accounts when they're in the field.”

The app, Oppenheim said, fits well within Affiliated's broader evolution as a company. “This is just part of our product road map,” he noted. “This was on our to-do list. We tested it and refined the contents and functionality on our online portal,” so the next logical step was to “roll it into an app.”

The company is also closely tracking the ongoing “Internet of things” phenomenon. Oppenheim said Affiliated is exploring ways to use the company's programming interface to “bring professional monitoring to a lot of non-traditional devices.”

“Increasingly we have a lot of devices that are connecting to the Internet and generating data and sending out messages,” Oppenheim said. While he acknowledged that many of those signals may not warrant a human response, “there are instances where non-traditional services could generate human intervention, and thus professional monitoring,” he noted.

A live monitoring component for appliances such as refrigerators or PERS and telehealth devices could emerge as a powerful source of additional RMR for dealers. That kind of Internet-based communication between appliances and central stations, Oppenheim believes, is the “future of monitoring.”

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