Review: Tunstall

Introduction: Tunstall Home is a UK company supported by Tunstall Healthcare, who are the leading providers for telecare technology that offer a large range of services, from warden call and community alarm systems to CCTV systems. Tunstall products and services play a key role in helping people and those with long-term health and care needs to stay out of hospital or residential care and live independently. Now, Tunstall Home offer you and your loved ones the extra safety with their latest service, the monitored smoke detectors.

For this review I have been testing out their smoke detectors, but these are not your normal smoke detectors, Tunstall are different because the smoke detectors are connected to a monitoring centre and they can detect fires in the home even If you're not home. Their monitoring centre is the state of the art response centre which is staffed and operational 24 hours a day.

Monitored smoke alarms are great for people that are out of the home often, or travel a lot, or maybe are pets owners or for anyone that wants that extra reassurance; someone like me that likes the idea their home, pets and children are protected. 

How it works: The wireless smoke detectors work in conjunction with the lifeline home base unit and when they detect smoke they raise two alarms:  first, the smoke detectors based within your home act like any other smoke detector by making a warning siren. Secondly, a signal is also sent to the Lifeline home unit, which raises a call to the 24 hour monitoring centre where a trained operator will contact you to determine what the next step is. If they do not receive a reply from you, the emergency services will be called.

Experience: A very friendly engineer came out to install both the wireless smoke detectors as well as the lifeline home unit.   He fitted the two detectors; one upstairs and one downstairs, both signal to the main lifeline unit. He was here less than an hour and the whole process was hassle free, with little disturbance.  

He took his time and attention to show, explain and demonstrate how the system worked, he tested both smoke detectors and the base unit, and he made sure they were all connected with each other and that the monitoring centre responded to the tests. Once he was happy with everything, he made sure I was happy and offered to answer any questions I had. 

The Cost:

• One-off £99 initial registration cost which covers the cost of the equipment, the engineer coming out to your home to set-up the equipment, and also covers your first month's subscription fee.
• £22 per month.

Conclusion: With a teenager that stays home alone, and with our dog, Harvey and our 2 cats, it is extremely reassuring to know they have that level of extra protection available to them. Liam for example often has his earphones on when playing his Xbox, or his music blasting out into his earphone on his iPad - would he hear the fire alarm if it went off? but I don't have to worry about that now, because if the fire alarm does go off, a telephone call is made to me from the monitoring centre to inform me and ask me if the fire brigade needs to be sent out, if I don't answer, I have a nominated back-up, 2nd person they call to reach out to, if they don't answer then the fire brigade is automatically sent out. Now that is peace of mind!

I was given 3 months complimentary subscription for this review, however based on the service I have received, the product, and the piece of mind it offers, I will definitely be carrying on with my monthly subscription. I cannot recommend this highly enough!