Wanted to upgrade my existing wired alarm and bring it into the 21st century. Solicited bids from 3 companies, each highly reviewed here on HomeStars. Engineered Alarm Solutions won the bid, in part because no monitoring contract was required - extremely unusual in the industry (most lock you in for 3 years).
Another reason I chose Engineered Alarm Solutions is because of Gabriel, the owner-operator. He actually is a Professional Engineer, a dues-paying member of the Professional Engineers of Ontario. Granted, a P.Eng. is overkill for installing an alarm system, but I felt that an engineer's attention to detail and their training to "get it right the first time" would pay dividends.
And so it has. Knowing a bit about alarms and reinforcing that with a bit of research, I knew exactly how I wanted to upgrade the existing wired system, adding a glass break alarm, CO2 and smoke senors, along with a new circuit box and alarm panel, among other upgrades. Gabriel made it happen.
In fact, Gabriel installed my system personally, along with one of his techs. He told me he doesn't usually do installs, but made an exception due to the workload. You gotta respect an O/O who has no problem "getting his hands dirty".
The best judge of an alarm system is how many false alarms it generates. After 3 weeks with the new system, that number is zero. There was one trouble alarm, but I called for service and the issue was quickly dealt with (was a problem with the alarm panel circuit board, replaced at no charge, they warranty what they install so long as you have a monitoring contract with them, standard in the industry).
All in all, very happy I chose to go with Garbiel and Engineered Alarm Solutions, rather than one of their larger competitors.