For over two years I have been contacting Noonlight and Wyze to secure an alarm permit.
In my city (and I suspect others) the alarm monitoring company is the one that needs to secure the permit for the house, not the user. So until they acquire the permit your house will not/may not have emergency services dispatched, so the annual home monitoring service becomes useless.
Has anyone else experienced the same issue or had it resolved?
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Responses I have received from noonlight
“If Noonlight receives an alarm from your Wyze system, a monitoring agent will text and call you to check whether you need help and will attempt to dispatch police if there’s an emergency. However, due to the Citys’ requirements, there’s just no guarantee that we will be able to successfully get the police to agree to respond without the alarm permit/identification number.”
“Wyze is in ongoing discussions with the City authorities to ensure their monitoring products are compliant with all applicable local alarm monitoring regulations. For now, in the event of an emergency, please call 911 directly, as the police may not respond to a location without an alarm identification number.”
Response from wyze
Thank you for your response, and for providing additional information. I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. I understand that you have concerns with your subscription as well. Please know that we are unable to do anything on our end since it is your city’s regulation for permit. Noonlight Team will reach out to you once they have an update. Regarding your subscription, please know that this is not a subscription related since permit is issued by your city and is outside our control.
If it were me, I would be parking at the Mayor’s office door and attending every council meeting to complain. I would definately be a thorn in the Emergency Manager’s side. It sounds like the city’s policy on the matter is severely outdated from before the time when there was internet and DIY Security System installs.
From my perspective, I am with Wyze & Noonlight. Your City’s policies are the root of the problem. I didn’t see their replies in your post.
The city policy to obtain a permit for active monitored security is for the alarm monitoring company to obtain the permit. This is in Noonlight’s origin city so it should have been part of the company’s workflow process,
I agree that Noonlight should be able to possibly assist in the process by providing you with whatever documentation you need to obtain the permit, but it is your permit… the home owner. You are the one that has to pay the fee regardless of who provides the hardware or who provides the monitoring.
In my experience the requirements for monitoring permits are in place to deter home owners from presenting too many false alarms. It is a financial cost issue for the city. The permit presents a mechanism by which they can both charge for the permit and charge for excessive false alarms.
In my city, and most of those of users I have corresponded with here in the forum and read their posts, the responsibility for obtaining the permit is on the home owner. I go to my City’s website, fill out the form, pay my $10, agree to the terms that I will be charged for excessive false alarms, and hit submit. Every year I have to update my info, pay another $10, and renew my permit. This is the model that Noonlight uses for all their monitoring across the nation… including the dozens of other alarm hardware companies for whom they provide professional contract monitoring. Your city seems to be the outlier.
It makes me consider another liability issue your city is creating that they should be aware of though. If Noonlight contacts them with an active alarm without a permit “the police may not respond to a location without an alarm identification number”. The potential liability the city is assuming in not responding to an active alarm call from an established nationwide professional monitoring service is astronomical. A single well worded letter to the City Manager and General Counsel should get their attention.
That’s a weird law. I am with SlabSlayer on this. I mostly blame the city. I am guessing some specific monitoring company bribed…I mean lobbied local officials or police to make it this way or there is some weird conflict of interest.
Still, it is the law for that area and probably won’t change.
I saw that you got some responses from Noonlight. Was that from emailing them at permits@noonlight.com ? Apparently this is the address to write to for help with permit issues.
I can understand the frustration of wanting automatic dispatch and not being able to get it when you want it.
I wouldn’t say the subscription is worthless without it though. I personally have the subscription and use it every day and it brings a ton of benefit to me…but I leave mine in test mode and in the permit number and instructions/notes I explicitly tell Noonlight NEVER to contact law enforcement without specific agreement from me. telling them to do so, and if they think they absolutely must do, they need to tell law enforcement that my notes tell them not to come because it’s a false alarm unless I say otherwise. I like being notified when something happens, but under no condition do I ever want to risk a false alarm fee. I am quite capable of making the call myself. I love the sirens, I like it notifying me, I like having different pins for each person and knowing how disarmed things, when. I like the entry chimes, I like the automatiions and rules I can do with the subscription, and all sorts of things. But if someone’s main desire is for automatic dispatch, I can understand how it doesn’t seem worth it if they can’t resolve that.
But again, I’d be doing like SlabSlayer says and try to get to the bottom of who in the local area is corrupt in making such an abnormal rule.
Do you need to pay for the monitoring service to keep it in test mode?
The permit law has been in effect before noonlight was a company, and they start in the city that has the law. So I would think they would know the law for their own city and know they would need to obtain the permit. The ordnance was updated in 2004, Noonlight started in 2013, Wyze home monitoring launched in 2021.
I’m checking with a few other companies to see how they manage the permits out of curiosity.
Are you saying this is a St Louis Missouri law? Because Noonlight is based out of there. If that is the case, then I would agree that it would be strange if they didn’t get a license for the very city they are based out of. Though if St-Louis requires them to get a new permit for every single Customer and makes a lot of red tape to be able to do it, I could see companies decide it’s not worth it. Bureaucrats can be a little ridiculous sometimes.
I also reached out to Simplisafe directly and it does not look like its a problem for them to be compliant with city dispatch registration laws:
SimpliSafe will register your system on your behalf, and update/bill your account as needed.
Activate your 24/7 professional Monitoring to automatically start the registration of your system.
SimpliSafe will update your account with the Permit Number and Expiration Date, as well as bill your account for the $25.00 Residential or $50.00 Commercial Permit Fee. You will receive an email notification when your account is charged.