Contacts & Policies
OpenAlarm alerts your people - family, neighbours, friends - not a call center. Two pieces define that: contacts are who can be reached, policies are the order and patience with which they are reached.
Contacts
Section titled “Contacts”Contacts → Add Contact: a name, and an email address, a mobile number, or both. A contact with neither can be saved; they simply have no channel to pick in a policy until you add one. On Free the mobile number field is disabled.
Consent is built in, not bolted on:
- You attest before you can save. The form requires confirming that this person agreed to be contacted by OpenAlarm on your behalf when your alarm is triggered. Ask them first - the suggested script is at openalarm.io/consent.
- They hear from OpenAlarm immediately - the moment you save, a first message naming you goes to each way you can reach them: an email to their address and a text to a mobile number. Adding or changing either later sends that one again. Nobody discovers they are an emergency contact during an emergency. A number marked as a landline gets no text.
- The consent stays theirs. Every message carries a way out - reply STOP to a text, unsubscribe on an email - and once a contact opts out, you cannot opt them back in; only they can, and the console shows you their status honestly rather than letting alerts silently vanish.
Policies
Section titled “Policies”Policies → New Policy. A policy is ordered levels. Each level names specific people and, per person, the channel to reach them on - SMS, voice, or email - plus how long to wait before moving on. SMS and voice are on Pro; on Free, every level alerts by email. SMS and voice selections made on Pro stay on the policy when you move to Free and come back when you upgrade; on Free you can clear them, but not add new ones.
When an incident opens, level 1 is alerted. If nobody acknowledges before the wait runs out, level 2 is alerted, and so on. After the last level, the policy either stops or repeats from level 1, up to 5 times - for the alarms where giving up is not an option.
Design them like response plans, not broadcast lists:
- Level 1: the people closest to the location. The neighbour who can see your driveway beats the relative three time zones away.
- A voice call wakes people that a text does not. Text first, call in a later level - or call first at night.
- Waits are how long you are willing to have nobody act. A minute or two per level is usually right; an hour is a broadcast, not an escalation.
One policy can serve many alarms, and one alarm can use different policies per mode - Night can wake the household while Away calls the neighbours. Bind them on the alarm’s mode settings.