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Admittedly, I didn't look into any companies because I've heard of so many scams (namely ADT). I did mine myself and was surprised how easy it was. I started researching DIY home security after the home invasion in Mt Vernon.
I decided I wanted an alarm to alert me if an intruder entered my yard and approached my house (mostly at night). This would give me enough time to react BEFORE they entered the house or even attempted to enter. Most conventional security systems trigger an alarm upon entry through a window/door or sense motion AFTER an intruder is already inside. To me, that's too late. Especially at 3am waking from a dead sleep.
Switches on windows won't work for me because we open our windows at night in the summer. Sometimes I'll open/close them in the middle of the night. If I have to disarm the system at night to open windows, the system is useless. Same goes for indoor motion sensors. Sometimes my kids get up and wander downstairs or we'll get up for something. Too many false alarms will cause you to never arm the system.
I needed outdoor motion detectors. They would detect someone and trigger the alarm as they approach the house. I wouldn't have false alarms no matter what happens inside. I went to homesecuritystore.com and browsed around. Visonic makes a very good outdoor WIRELESS motion detector to go with their alarm systems. I was skeptical about the wireless technology because every wireless device I have eats batteries. I haven't replaced a battery yet. There are many accessories including flood sensors and cameras.
The system I got has a GSM module (an internal cell phone that dials out even if the land-line phone is cut). I can check status and arm/disarm via the internet and SMS text. I self monitor. That means I don't pay a company to monitor the system and call police when the alarm goes off. I'm less concerned about unoccupied burglary then home invasion. When the system triggers: the built-in siren alarm goes off (yeah, its LOUD enough), a strobe light visible from the street flashes, text messages get sent to multiple phone numbers, voice mails get sent to multiple numbers. If it goes off when the house is unoccupied, I'll log in and check the cameras to try to see why it got triggered and then decide whether to call police (or a neighbor) to check it out.
One nice feature we use is voice chimes. Even with the system disarmed, if a sensor is tripped, the unit's speaker tells us. For example "front door opened", "front yard", etc. So when a visitor comes, we first hear "front yard" before they even get to the doorbell. More importantly, if a kid decides to go outside on their own, we hear "garage door" before they make their escape.
If you can hang a picture, you can install a wireless system yourself. PM me if you want more info.
Deer & bear will trigger outdoor motion sensors. That said you can usually configure certain sensors to only sound a chime (rather than trip the entire system) and position the sensors so they aren't covering places animals usually are- but where a person would be to get into the house.
I have not had a single false alarm due to an animal passing through the yard. Deer and bear sightings are very rare in my neighborhood. Presidential visits are more common than big game. Also helps to carefully position the sensors as you mentioned.
The sensors I have don't trigger unless the animal is over 40lbs so cats and squirrels aren't a problem.
Self monitoring is a good idea too since you don't want the police showing up at your house every time Bambi walks through your yard.
I honestly don't remember, but if you do a search for "ADT scam", like I just did, you'll get some reading material. I just remember hearing bad stuff over the years and never looked into them. I'm a hardcore DIYer so I really didn't research providers. I just starting looking for something I could install myself and already had an idea of what I needed to accomplish the goal of alerting me of a property intruder in the middle of the night.
I have seen ADT mail ads where they offer security systems for cheap. But they only include some basic indoor sensors and make their money on subscriptions for monitoring. I believe a basic indoor system like that will either false alarm so much that the user never arms it, or nothing will ever trigger it because there are so few sensors. Then the user is paying $xx.xx/mo and the company has to do nothing.
BTW: The Cates family had a security system when the tragedy happened. It wasn't armed. Possibly due to a malfunction that went unfixed.
avlis - dh purchased items from the site you recommended and is installing it right now. that's so much for the info!
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