If you live in France and want to add a security system to your home, you don’t have many options. You can contact a home security company such as secure and hominis. But with long-term contracts you pay expensive subscription costs. You can also buy your own security camera and connected sensors. But then there is no one to watch your house for you.
Qiara wants to modernize the good old home security market with live agents. The company aims to sell security products and subscriptions directly to end customers through its website, without long-term commitments.
Users first choose the security products they need from the company’s own product portfolio. Qiara sells a camera, a door sensor, a keypad, a siren and a motion sensor.
After that, users can pay $29.99 per month for the service with live agents. If an alarm goes off, the security guard will try to call you and check the video feed from the security camera. If you don’t answer the phone and something suspicious is going on, the company will call the police for you. The company gives you a € 10 discount on your subscription fee for the first year. There’s also a cheaper plan for customers who don’t need 24/7 monitoring, but that defeats the purpose of the service.
In addition to the keypad, Qiara offers a mobile app that allows you to activate the alarm and view the live video feed from the security cameras. You can configure your system to turn off automatically when your phone is nearby thanks to Bluetooth. You can also turn on a privacy shutter when you’re home so the security camera doesn’t film your family.
All modules are battery operated except the security camera. If there is a power or network failure, Qiara can still protect your home thanks to Sigfox network support. The company, founded by Alexis Bidinot, a former executive at Iliad, has decided to design its connected devices in-house.
In many ways, Qiara is a bit like SimpliSafe in the US By default, you set up the security modules yourself and then you’re good to go – it’s a DIY security system. So let’s see if Qiara can start from scratch and take a market share in the home security market in France.
