FAQ about Redcare

Redcare Classic.

Redcare Classic was the first really secure form of monitoring introduced into the intruder alarm market. It worked by continuously monitoring the copper pair of wires that connected the alarm panel to the central monitoring station. A series of chirps could be heard on the line under certain conditions but in general it worked over the top of the speech so was inaudible to the phone users. Redcare claim it could not be defeated and to be fair we at Integrated CCTV have never heard of a situation where it has.

Redcare GSM.

Redcare GSM was the next generation of signalling product and  was developed in order to give police a confirmed alarm in order to comply with DD243 that came into effect earlier this decade. It allowed the secondary path to still tell the central station exactly what was happening even if the line was cut. This mean that you could have a com fail followed by a code 3 burglary signal and you could be certain a break in was occurring. The Police of course were very pleased with this solution and again we do not know of any circumstance where it has been defeated.

Competition.

In recent years Redcare has finally come under pressure from other products. It has enjoyed many years where it dominated the intruder alarm signalling market place but broadband has started to change all this. Being a BT product it has always needed a BT line to allow it to work but now Broadband means that some sites don’t even have a BT line on site.

Solution.

Redcare Secure is the latest product that BT have launched and this is aimed at sites that have installed broadband and are considering competitor products such as Emizon (integrated into the Castle Caretec Euro 1 as standard), DualCOM or Chiron. It is cheaper than previous Redcare products and promises to help Redcare recapture some ground lost over the last two or three years.

Conclusion.

Despite claims to the contrary Redcare is very much still a favorite of the Intruder alarm industry and the major insurance companies still make reference to Redcare being the primary product that should be installed in order to meet their requirements. Redcare have a major conference in Birmingham during IFSEC week to show off new products. It will be interesting though to see who comes out on top under the new challenging conditions created by the changes within the communication market place.