Tag: Freeus

OGDEN, Utah—Becklar LLC, parent company of both AvantGuard Monitoring Centers and Freeus, announced the appointment of Steve Richards as CEO. Richards is an experienced CEO and has led numerous publicly-traded and private companies of meaningful scale. Josh Garner, Becklar’s founder and former CEO, has assumed the role of Executive Chairman of the company’s board of directors. Garner, who remains a significant shareholder, will continue to be actively involved in the company’s...

OGDEN, Utah—Parent company of both AvantGuard Monitoring Centers and Freeus, Becklar, LLC partnered with Boston-based BV Investment Partners.“We are very excited to join forces with BV,” Josh Garner, CEO, Becklar, said in the announcement. “They are a leading middle-market private equity firm that focuses on tech-enabled business services, software and IT services sectors. Their strategic perspective will benefit us immensely. Further, our partnership will allow Becklar to continue its...

OGDEN, Utah—Freeus, LLC, a wholesale mobile personal emergency response system (mPERS), announced the launch of the next generation of Belle�mPERS, certified on the Verizon 4G LTE network. This device offers the same low-maintenance, easy-to-use features as previous Belle products, along with state-of-the-art hardware and firmware, and IP67 water-resistance.“We are proud to offer the next generation of Belle to provide a solution for the forthcoming 3G turndown,” said Freeus COO,...

OGDEN, Utah—On Jan. 1, executives from AvantGuard and Freeus became part owners of a newly formed holding company called Becklar.“Prior to this, I was the sole shareholder of the company, and when you just are surrounded by really great people who are working so hard to contribute to the company's success, I felt like I needed to reward and compensate them in different ways,” Josh Garner, CEO of Becklar, told Security Systems News.Garner was the sole owner of Golden Aide—the...

OGDEN, Utah—Freeus, an mPERS manufacturer based here, will be offering dealers education on how to enter and grow in the personal emergency response system space, called PERS University. Freeus will offer webinars, videos, one-on-one guidance and marketing materials.“There's so many people wanting to get into the medical alert business today. � Many people are looking at it—they're not sure where to start,” Arthur Von Ahnen, Freeus' new business account executive and PERS...

YARMOUTH, Maine—On first inspection, the Apple Watch's newly announced 'SOS' feature may seem similar to an mPERS device, but PERS experts who spoke to Security Systems News said comparing an Apple Watch with an mPERS device is like comparing apples and oranges.Apple in June announced new features for its Apple Watch 2, which its expects to release later this year. Here's how the Apple Watch SOS feature works: If an Apple Watch user holds down the device's side button, nearby emergency services...

In last week's Monitoring Matters blog, I discussed the Apple Watch's new SOS feature, and its similarities and differences between PERS functions. A few security professionals took me up on the opportunity to respond. Daniel Oppenheim, VP of Affiliated Monitoring, said that the heightened consumer awareness of personal emergency features could grow the market, instead of cannibalize it, and that the demographics are different. “I think the Apple Watch, specifically, is for a more mobile, more...

YARMOUTH, Maine—The users of personal emergency response systems (PERS) are getting younger. They are generally technologically savvy. The technology is getting more advanced. And so monitoring stations, manufacturers and dealers have reasons to believe the golden age of PERS market growth has begun.Except, of course, free markets are ultimately run by people, not data. And people complicate things.The PERS market has the type of demographics that grab the attention of venture capitalists,...

OGDEN, Utah—Since Freeus' acquisition of Securus' PERS assets�in early March 2015, the company has doubled its customer base and now has more than 100 dealers.“In the last year, Freeus has grown from a subscriber base of 30,000 active users to over 75,000 active users,” Brock Winzeler, GM at Freeus, told Security Systems News.Winzeler said that the company's unique Orion platform and competitive pricing led to this growth.�“Some partners that are activating large quantities...

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about Securus and the two companies that acquired its assets. Securus, a company focused on GPS tracking and PERS, was divided and sold in two parts in the first quarter of 2015. The PERS side of the business was sold to Freeus, a newly founded sister company to AvantGuard, formed for the purpose of acquiring this part of Securus. BrickHouse Security acquired the GPS business. I find this interesting lately because BrickHouse yesterday started a Kickstarter to fund...