“You’ll Never Be Home Alone.” So states Swann Keys resident Ron Finelli’s business card, and he takes it to heart. He started up his Advanced Alert business about a year ago, providing G&E CareGard systems for seniors, recuperating post-op patients or anyone interested in comprehensive security.
Coastal Point • SAM HARVEY:
Ron Finelli holds one of his products at Advanced Alert.
Originally from Havertown, Pa., Finelli moved to the West Fenwick area in 2001 with his newlywed wife, Tracie. A self-proclaimed electronics nut, he expresses considerable enthusiasm for his favorite in emergency response systems — and is emphatic regarding his clients’ use of the personal transmitters. “I don’t want them to ever take that off,” he said. “I want them wearing that in the shower.” (They’re waterproof).
Nearly everyone is familiar with these systems, or some variation thereof (think fallen, can’t get up) — the transmitters Finelli refers to can be worn as “pendants” or “sports watches,” as he described them, or clipped to a belt or mounted to a headboard or bedside table.
By themselves, they don’t look like much, but Finelli explained some of the system’s finer points, and it’s rather sophisticated.
Smoke detectors and, optionally, carbon monoxide (CO), freeze or flood detectors, are all linked to the CareGard panel (the oversized answering machine-looking thing), and he said they periodically “shake hands,” and check on one another’s status.
For instance, Finelli said one of his clients had unplugged her CO detector, and then plugged it back into the extension cord lighting up her Christmas tree. When she unplugged the tree, the CO detector went offline, generating a (non-emergency) call to the monitoring company.
The system self-tests every six hours. It alerts the homeowner (starts beeping), and sends a non-emergency call if one of the devices malfunctions, or there’s a power outage and the clock needs to be reset. The company even alerts Finelli if it’s just a simple problem that needs to be addressed, like batteries running low (he said he usually just calls clients to give them a heads-up, in those cases).
Now for the real emergencies – hit the panic button and the monitoring company responds in a minute or two. Finelli demonstrated, and called out his dealer number when the operator asked him about the alarm.
“If I hadn’t given him that, this wouldn’t have been a false alarm,” he pointed out. “It would have been a real alarm.”
Finelli helps clients set up a password, and if operators get a bad response, they send emergency services (fire, ambulance, police). If they don’t get a response, they call emergency services.
And Finelli said clients could set it up so they would receive a call themselves — on their cell phone, for instance. “So, you know an alarm went off, even if you’re not at home,” he pointed out.
Once responders reach the client’s home, he said the monitoring service would start calling people on their contact list (to let them know which hospital an ambulance might be heading toward, for instance).
Advanced Alert charges a $50 installation fee, and about $25 a month for the monitoring service. For more information, visit the Web site at www.advancedalert.net, or reach Finelli at (302) 436-9406.