Patent ID: 8185644

Claim:
A notification system for receiving a request message for a remote status update under a short message service (SMS) format from a remote device comprising: (a) a central monitoring server that registers a plurality of SMS message destination addresses for respective users of security devices who subscribe to receive security device updates from the central monitoring server; (b) an access server that receives the request message under the SMS format from said remote device, the access server determines whether said remote device is registered to submit request messages to the central monitoring server from a header of the request message and denies the request message and prevents access to the central monitoring server when the remote device is not registered wherein the request message includes a blank text message portion and wherein the request message is a unique number that identifies one of the plurality of SMS message destinations registered by the central monitoring server; (c) a host website for allowing said remote device to be registered to receive said remote status update; and (d) wherein the central monitoring server provides a plurality of predetermined functions wherein at least one of the plurality of functions is associated with each of the plurality of message destinations, where the request message from a registered remote device is delivered to one of the plurality of messages destinations identified by the unique number and the central monitoring server generates a response in accordance with the identified predetermined function of the message destination based upon receipt of the request message, said central monitoring server is coupled to a remote security device of a subscribing user of the remote device wherein said security device is configured to detect an event, said security device transmits a message to said central monitoring server in response to the detected event, and wherein said central monitoring server sends a remote status update to the remote device in response to the request message, where the status update includes information regarding said detected event in accordance with at least one of the plurality of predetermined functions identified by the request message.