Spent $600 on a cellular dialer replacement and it saved my butt on a Friday night job

So I had a customer in Tucson whose old landline dialer was dead, and I talked them into dropping $600 on a cellular unit instead of a cheaper cellular converter. Last Friday their alarm tripped during a storm and the panel called out to central fine, but the converter I almost installed wouldve been toast since the phone lines were down too. That got me thinking, is the extra cost worth it for every install, or are we just selling features nobody really needs? Anyone else had a job where the pricey option paid off or just as many where the cheap route worked fine?

2 comments

2 Comments

grace50824d ago

Cheaper gear has its place, no doubt, but that storm scenario is exactly why I lean toward the pricier option when the customer can swing it. Phone lines going down with the alarm panel is a pretty specific failure, but it's the kind that makes you look like a hero instead of the guy who cut corners. If the cheap route works nine times out of ten, that one time it doesn't is usually the one that gets talked about.

seanlee23d ago

Wait, phone lines can actually go down? That's wild.