Home Automation Technologies

We are a small HOA that needed a surveillance system so I contacted Home Automation Technologies (HAT) and Paul came out to discuss the project at lengths with me and provided his selling points. I needed the board to be in agreement so he came back to site and sold the rest of the board with the fact that we can monitor the cameras from remote locations away from where the DVRs reside and even on Smartphones. So, we spent a good chunk of our reserves with HAT.
I admit that it’s rather hard to coordinate everyone’s schedule so that the project can begin, however, the first issue was placement of the DVR in one of the buildings. Rather than asking where we would like it placed, they just installed it and turned out to be the renter’s unit as oppose to the homeowner, which meant that everytime there was a problem, we had to inconvenience the people renting the unit and on top of that they placed it in one of the bedroom closets which had a lot of white noise which disturbed the occupants. Second issue was when image just wasn’t able to be viewed from remote locations on a consistent basis and after install took place, it was then told to us that in terms of the smart phones, it HAD to be a Apple I Phone as it wasn’t compatible with Androids. On top of that, each visit to correct the unstable image, they would show up and just leave without even letting anyone know of the latest updates. Then, at the completion of the project, you would think that there would be some sort of formal training for each of the folks who had a DVR so we knew how to pull recordings when needed, NONE! I got an on line instruction manual.
Fast forward, 1.5 years later, images still wasn’t working!!! Mind you, we have been dealing with this for 1.5 years without any solution. They would get the images to show up and then, a couple of days to a week later, it’s down again. Rather than being professionals as they claim to be, I was told that it was a result of one fo the homeowner’s router and they refuse to work on it and told us to hire an IT Consultant. Now, if this is a company who does security systems that are hooked to a network via DVR, why would we have to engage an outside IT Consultant and wouldn’t the professional way to handle this situation is to take control of the situation and work with an IT Consultant while billing us for that service up front and not tell us that it’s our issue and deal with it ouselves??? I am beyond disgusted with this company.
The Board finally gave up trying to deal with this unprofessional company and ended up hiring some IT Folks who fixed the problem and guess what? No more problems! However, as the company who corrected the issue, they were also amazed at the fact of how this situation was handled. The DVR was placed by HAT in an attic which can climb to over 120 degrees which will eventually burn out, the routers were not properly configured, and written instructions were not properly provided. The sad thing is, do I even know the brand of the DVR… nope sure don’t! The instructions don’t even say the brand!
If you are looking for professionals who know what they’re doing, make sure that you steer clear from these crooks and keep looking!!!