These innovations are creating new options for consumers and driving changes in the way monitoring services and first responders react to emergencies. ”Steve Schmit, engineering manager – alarm certificate services with UL’s Building and Life Safety Technologies division, Northbrook, Ill. , also notes this trend. “We are seeing the industry approach the market with services. Technology is such that users can interact with the security system in ways that weren’t possible before, which opens up all kinds of opportunities. We see folks not only introducing new security type services such as video, but that same pipeline enables your security system to help out with things like personal emergency response and home automation sorts of things. ”This is exactly what led East Hartford, Conn. based dealer Faraz Rehman, vice president of information services, Associated Security Corp. featured on this month’s cover to call 2016 a “great” year. “We brought in a lot of new technology with the recurring model. Monitoring is what keeps our industry going and with home automation being integrated with alarms we have more chances to profit from that and more services we can give out to our clients.