Will Alarm.com work with what you already have?
Usually yes. Most DSC and Honeywell panels keep everything on the wall and gain the app with one added communicator.
New system: Qolsys IQ Panel 5
Alarm.com is built in. It replaces the IQ Panel 4, which is no longer made. If your existing wireless sensors still work we keep them where the panel can use them — tell us the brand and we confirm — so a new panel does not have to mean new sensors. Already have a working IQ Panel 4? We take it over as it is.
Prefer no screen? The IQ5 Hub is the same system without the touchscreen — Alarm.com built in, the same wireless sensors, run from the app. It is a small box that can live out of sight, and it costs less than the panel. Add an IQ Remote touchscreen later if somebody wants a screen by the door.
DSC PowerSeries, PowerSeries Neo or Pro
An Alarm.com communicator plugs into the panel. Your keypads and sensors stay; you get the app, cellular signalling and Z-Wave for locks and thermostats.
Honeywell / Ademco VISTA 10P, 15P, 20P, 21iP
Also the First Alert versions. An Alarm.com System Enhancement Module wires to the keypad bus. Panel and keypads stay.
Older panels with a phone dialer
Older DSC, Honeywell, Paradox, GE and similar panels can often take the Alarm.com Universal Communicator for app arming, disarming and alerts. Send us the brand and model, or a photo of the keypad.
Resideo ProSeries, VISTA H3, Lyric
These are Resideo systems and run on Total Connect, an entirely separate platform — they cannot be put on Alarm.com. We install and monitor them too: see accuratesecurity.ca.
No phone line needed
Alarm.com plans use an LTE communicator on the AT&T network, which runs on Canadian towers, with your home internet as a second path on most modules.
Tell us what is on the wall and we will tell you the same day what it takes.
Cellular monitoring: your system talks to us over the cellular network, and here is how we make sure it can.
An Alarm.com system reports through an LTE connection of its own, so it keeps working when the internet goes down, the power goes out or a phone line is cut. That means the signal at your address matters — and in an area like ours, with everything from downtown condos to farms past Dunrobin, it is worth ten minutes of checking before anyone drills a hole.
We fit the AT&T LTE radio in our Alarm.com panels and communicators on purpose. In Canada it is a roaming connection, so instead of being tied to one carrier for life it can attach to whichever partner network is reachable at your address — if one tower is congested or down, it is not the only option the panel has. A single-carrier radio does not get that choice.
Check your address on the maps below. If your phone works at the house, the panel almost certainly will, and coverage can differ street to street outside the Greenbelt. Where a signal is marginal we fit an antenna or run dual path, and where a different build genuinely suits the address better we will say so.
One postal-code search that shows Bell, Rogers and Telus side by side, indoor and outdoor. Useful if the official maps disagree with what your phone actually does in the basement.
Stand where the panel would go — usually a front hall or a basement utility area — and look at your bars. If your phone struggles there, tell us when you call. It changes what we install, not whether we can do it.
The panel reports its own signal strength during setup. If it is marginal we move it, add an antenna, or use the internet as the first path with cellular as backup. We do not hand over a system that is reporting on one bar.
Carrier coverage maps are the carriers' own and are approximate; the map links above are provided as a convenience and we do not control them. The only reading that counts is the one the panel takes at your address on install day.
Whatever panel you end up on, the app is the same
A taken-over VISTA, a taken-over DSC and a brand-new IQ Panel 5 all land in the same Alarm.com app — the difference is how much of the house it can reach, not which app you get. What the app does, screen by screen.
Already running Alarm.com through another company? That is a different job — switching to us. Otherwise, build your system or read the questions we get asked most.