Alarm and AS Monitor

I reckon if you hide it either in plain sight on the dash, or hidden above the roof lining it wouldn't be found. More importantly would it count as a tracker for insurance purposes? I guess not, they want one of these where you pay a monthly fee to someone sleeping at a desk in Timbuktoo.

Obviously I don't even bother to inform insurance.

Yesterday the Auto-Sleepers Service Centre under warranty fitted a cable provided by Sargent between the tracker Comms unit and the alarm control unit.  Alarm alerts and a phone call from the Bedford tracker Ops room were received after I deliberately triggered the alarm.  It took a good 25 minutes for them to come through.  I don't know if this is typical.  On another occasion when I deliberately disconnected the leisure battery the alerts and phone call came within 5 minutes.  Anyway, it works so a good outcome.

Going back to switches that go click, and join metal to metal I had a 2017 Pilote campervan with an electrical control panel with proper switches. If you are interested in seeing my fat tummy and a review of the Pilote you can see it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qieY2BhUQk&t=3s
Please don't excommunicate me from the forum, otherwise I will have to go and buy a Burstner. Or a Chausson. Maybe a Hymer.

gassygassy wrote:Going back to switches that go click, and join metal to metal I had a 2017 Pilote campervan with an electrical control panel with proper switches. If you are interested in seeing my fat tummy and a review of the Pilote you can see it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qieY2BhUQk&t=3s
Please don't excommunicate me from the forum, otherwise I will have to go and buy a Burstner. Or a Chausson. Maybe a Hymer.

Very good, you didn't do your status any harm in posting the link. 

You may be excommunicated from any group of the usual Motorhome Reviewers though having a thinking, practical man doing it goes right against the rules.

There was no slow boring commentary about nothing, and why was most the video not taken up with you bumping along a country lane, passing the camera, rear shots overhead shots, going round bends...…………………...

Yes, and I should have had awful music drowning out the commentary. The reason we changed it for the Nuevo was the effect you always get in a panel van of a long-ish corridor so the Nuevo, although shorter, feels more spacious. That is helped of course by the fact that the Nuevo doesn't have fixed beds. I would have an electric drop down bed if it wasn't for my experience of them. Bleurrgh.

I am now in a position to give a bit of an update on this thread which I started in Feb last year but then went off topic to some extent.  I have discovered the EC635 (EC632 in my case) tracker and communication unit referred to on pages 14 & 27 of the Harmony UMS User Instructions is capable of sending two alarm alerts when it is connected through a T-piece and two wires to the alarm control unit, which mine now is courtesy of Sargent and the Auto-Sleepers Service Centre at Willersey. 
 
The first alert is referred to under Inhibit service mode on AS Monitor and is sent to the manned tracking centre at Bedford after the alarm has sounded for 30 seconds (if the manned tracking centre service has been paid for) which I understand from Sargent is a Thatcham requirement.  This should not be confused with the tracker alert described under Inhibit transport mode. The law does not allow vehicle alarms to sound for longer than 30 seconds.  Fortunately, my Vodaphone Cobra vehicle alarm sounds for about 30 seconds.  It wasn’t quite long enough for the alarm alert to be sent but, with the help of a capacitor, it now sends and I receive a call from the tracking centre.  Something called a pull-up resistor also had to be added to prevent a fault occurring on the system.  This setup should work for any alarm that sounds for about 30 seconds but if it turns off much before 30 seconds, which I understand some vehicle alarms do, it might not work. 
 
The second alert is the SMS/e-mail alarm alert referred to on page 5 of the AS Monitor User Guide (which does not require the manned tracking centre service to be paid for) and is sent directly to the owner but apparently not until the alarm has sounded for well in excess of 30 seconds.  This means that the alert will not work with motorhomes no matter how the alarm is wired.  It will work with some caravan alarms as they are not restricted to 30 seconds but caravan alarms can’t be fitted to motorhomes. 

I started this thread 2 years ago and I can now close it with a successful outcome.  After much perseverance, my AS Monitor e-mail and SMS alarm alerts from my after-market Cobra vehicle alarm now work as does the telephone alarm alert from the manned tracking station.  This required a new EC660 communications and tracking unit and software updates but we got there in the end which shows that perseverance can pay off.  The benefit of the e-mail/SMS alerts is that they are generated automatically with no man in the loop so are quicker and more reliable than the phone call.  The alarm alerts work whether the EC700 is shutdown or not.

I was told last week that A S are fitting EC 900S now.

I asked them to swap mine on the basis it can't be any worse (can it)

My Van is three years old in May and I still have trouble with the 12 volt side 

Pete

I've not heard of the EC 900A.  My 2019 van came with an EC632.  It was changed a couple of times under warranty and last year was replaced FOC with the current EC660-2 to get the alarms alerts working.  The main benefits of the EC660-2 are that it has a rechargeable battery rather than a non-rechargeable battery and works on 4G rather than 2G which is due to be shutdown and has already been shutdown in some countries.

I read that most smart electricity meters run on 2G so there will be a problem there when its shutdown.  But some countries have shut it down and others are due to well before 2030 which could affect those who travel internationally