When Alerts Aren't Enough: Why You Also Need an Escalation Process for Proactive Home Protection

Picture this.

You've bought your new home monitoring and security system. You've linked your devices to the associated app and carefully placed them around potentially vulnerable areas of your home. You feel more at ease now that you've taken steps to proactively protect your house and belongings. If your devices detect any abnormal activity that could indicate a problem, you'll know immediately... right?

You pause, considering the likelihood of missing a single notification from your smart devices. What happens if something goes wrong when you don't have cell service — or when you've silenced your phone or put it on airplane mode? How does your new system address these types of scenarios?

When You Might Miss a Notification

Any home monitoring and security system worth its salt will include a solution to the potential of you being unreachable or simply missing a notification from your smart devices. "I'd never miss a notification," you might say. "I'm always near my phone and it's always on." But is this really the case? What about in the below scenarios?

• When you're in a meeting or on a call

• When you're working out

• When you're at the movie theater

• When you're out to dinner (and this time you've promised to leave your phone in your pocket/purse)

• Any other time that you're busy or away from your phone

What happens if something goes wrong while you're otherwise engaged or intentionally "unplugged" and miss the notification?

Enter: the Escalation Process

A carefully considered escalation process addresses the potential of you being unreachable or missing notification by putting safeguards in place to make sure someone you trust is alerted to an issue at your home if you're unavailable.

Here's how our escalation process works.

With Hedge, there are certain "abnormal events" that we consider high-priority. In other words, there's a good chance that they'll lead to a real problem if not addressed. These high-priority events include:

• Your smoke or carbon monoxide detector sounding

• Water accumulation ("accumulation" defined as .5mm)

In the event that a notification of either of these high-priority events goes unacknowledged (e.g. you don't open the app, signaling "I got the notification and I'm on it!") then a series of additional notifications, texts, and calls will be made to you and other users on your account, followed by your emergency contact.

A Hedge Story: How Our Escalations Work

Having a hard time picturing the process? Here's how it might play out in real life.

Remember — your emergency contact won't have access to your Hedge App (meaning they won't be able to view alerts, video clips, or your live feed), and you can change your emergency contact at any time.

Our 24/7 Alerts & Escalations Require No Additional Setup

Setting up alerts and escalations looks a little different depending on your home monitoring and security system. At Hedge, we've done the groundwork for you: every Hedge system comes programmed with 24/7 alerts and escalations already in place.

All you need to do is connect your Hedge smart home devices with the Hedge App (more details on that here). After that, you can designate additional account users and your emergency contact.

The safety and security of your home shouldn't rely on you receiving a single notification; that puts undue pressure on you and leaves too much room for error. You may be unreachable or "unplugged" more often than you think, and the escalation process is Hedge's response — just another way that we help you proactively protect your home.