What does a “late to test” or “fail to test” mean?

Our monitored systems are programmed to send an automatic check-in or test signal to our emergency response center at regular intervals. If we do not receive this signal, we will contact you (either by phone call or email/text depending on your established communication preferences) to notify of a potential problem and to attempt to assist in determining why the test was not received. If you receive a late to test signal, your alarm system is unable to communicate with our response center. In this instance, please call our Customer Excellence team at 1-877-263-2627, Option #6

Some common causes of a late to test notification are: Communication interruption or failure. If your system communicates to our response center via phone line and there was a disruption or change with you phone service, this will cause an issue. A similar error would happen if your system communicates via cellular radio and there is an issue with cellular service or your panel has a cellular connection that is no-longer supported by the cell companies (i.e. 3G). Power Failure. Most of our panels and keypads have a backup battery to power your system should you lose power at your home or business; however, those batteries will eventually die, causing a communication failure if power is not restored in a timely manner. We will alert you when you have a low battery issue so it can be resolved prior to a communication failure. However, there are times when the battery dies prior to a power restoration. In this instance, your system would be late to test and you would receive a notification.