VacantView watches your property automatically and lets you know the moment something is detected, so no one has to sit and watch the cameras. You set the hours when people are supposed to be on site, and anything that happens outside those hours triggers an alert.
What triggers an alert
VacantView generates an alert when a camera or motion sensor detects motion or a person outside the property viewing schedule you set for that market. Detections during your scheduled visiting hours do not send an alert (leak-sensor and other asset-management alerts still come through at any time).
How you are alerted
An alert can reach you several ways at once. You choose which ones are on in your dashboard settings:
- Push notification in the Swidget mobile app
- Email alert
- SMS text to the phone numbers you add
- An Active Alert on the VacantView dashboard, where you can open the live feed to see what is happening
Getting alerted when staff are asleep
The SMS text is the best way to make sure an overnight event still gets someone's attention. Most phones let you mark a specific number as a priority or emergency contact so its texts still ring through even when the phone is in night mode or Do Not Disturb. If you set up the VacantView alert number that way on the phone of whoever is on call, an after-hours detection will make an audible alert even overnight.
Is there a monitoring service?
VacantView is self-monitored, which means you and your team receive the alerts and view the feeds directly. There is no third-party monitoring service in the middle. VacantView does the watching automatically and pushes the alert straight to you, so you decide how to respond.
Avoiding repeat alerts
Once a motion-based alert is sent, VacantView holds off on sending another until motion has stopped for a set period, called the Motion Alert Cooldown. Events during that window are still recorded to the event log, they just do not send a repeat alert. You can set the cooldown, choose which alert types are on, and turn alerts off for a specific property from the dashboard.