A cloud VMS that feeds CHeKT or replaces it.

CHeKT is the right call when: the dealer is already in the Alarm.com channel, the monitoring centre is set up around CHeKT's operator workflow with AI-partner filtering (Actuate, Camect, Cawamo, Hanwha AI, IronYun, Umbo, VCA Technology, AVA/Avigilon), and the deal economics work with the CHeKT bridge hardware (CKB308/CKB312v2/CKB416) on every site. The platform is purpose-built for that operator-experience moment.

TetherX is the better fit when: the operator wants a single cloud platform that covers the customer dashboard, the installer back-office, native cloud recording and playback, alarms, access and the control-room workflow itself - without depending on a separate bridge box per site or a separate operator portal in front of a separate camera platform. Where both run side by side, TetherX gives CHeKT a cleaner upstream feed; where the centre is consolidating, TetherX replaces the lot.

CHeKT is a Remote Video Monitoring bridge plus an operator workflow. The CHeKT Video Control Panel hardware ringfences cameras and the alarm panel and ships event clips, snapshots and live streams to the CHeKT cloud. The Monitoring Portal is the cloud-based operator UI on top, with AI-partner detections plugged in. There is no native long-term recording engine - CHeKT does not own the storage tier the way a VMS does.

TetherX is a cloud VMS. The TetherBox edge appliance does the ringfencing, but recording, playback, search, dashboards, AI and the control-room workflow all run on the TetherX platform itself. Cameras keep recording during Internet outages and sync on reconnect. One platform owns the data path from camera to operator to customer dashboard, rather than a stack of three vendors (camera + bridge + monitoring portal).

The CHeKT Video Control Panel is core to how CHeKT works - the dealer buys a CKB308 (8-channel), CKB312v2 (12-channel) or CKB416 (16-channel) bridge for every site, plus a 4-camera Visual Security Kit (CKB308-4MPKIT) where it suits the install. That is fine when the dealer is standardising on CHeKT, but it is per-site hardware capex on top of the cameras themselves.

TetherX also uses an on-site bridge - the TetherBox - but it does both jobs in one box: ringfencing the cameras off the public Internet, and acting as the edge recording / buffering tier for the VMS. There is no separate per-site monitoring-portal device; the same hardware is the recording layer and the secure tunnel into TetherX cloud.

CHeKT does not publish a public price sheet. Pricing surfaces in three places: the CHeKT Video Control Panel hardware itself (CKB308/CKB312v2/CKB416, plus the 4-camera CKB308-4MPKIT bundle - retail runs roughly $600 for the 8-channel CKB308, $1,000 for the 16-channel CKB416 and $1,990 for the camera kit, and the bridge now ships Alarm.com-branded through distribution post-acquisition); a per-bridge monthly verification subscription (a 2021 Southwest Dispatch price sheet showed $3-6 per bridge per month including 10 operator-handled video alarms, then $1 per extra activation, plus cloud-clip charges billed per 1,000); and the monitoring centre's own dispatch fee on top. Because the subscription is metered per event, the bill is not fixed: a weather event, a faulty sensor or a busy season pushes activations past the bundle and the monthly cost up with it. So an end customer pays hardware + a variable CHeKT subscription + monitoring fee, across at least two vendors.

TetherX is one annual platform subscription priced by channel count (from £80/site/year) - dashboard, multi-site, alarms and access included - with cloud recording, AI search and ARC monitoring layered on per camera only where the customer wants them. Quoted through the integrator partner, predictable per-channel economics, one vendor relationship.

CHeKT's pitch leans hard on its AI-partner network. Actuate, Camect, Cawamo, Hanwha AI, IronYun, Umbo, VCA Technology and AVA (Motorola Avigilon) all plug into the Monitoring Portal so the operator sees filtered, classified events instead of raw motion. This is a real strength of the platform - it turns dumb motion alarms into people / vehicle / weapon / loitering events for the central-station operator. CHeKT is not the only platform doing this (Immix runs AI Link with the same partner set), but the partner integration is solid.

TetherX AI runs inside the same platform as recording, search, dashboards and the control room. The customer filters by object, colour, zone and time (a person in red near the loading bay yesterday) and the platform answers from the cloud-stored video directly - no external AI plug-in needed for the basic use cases. Where the customer wants a specialist partner (e.g. weapon detection from a vendor with a verified track record), TetherX integrates the same way. So both platforms get to the same place; TetherX gets there without an extra vendor in the stack for the everyday flow.

Yes - same architectural pattern as feeding Immix CS. TetherX owns the camera and recording layer; the central-station operator keeps the CHeKT Monitoring Portal workflow they already know. TetherX delivers a single tidy event with verified video attached so the CHeKT operator does not have to do slow live-view verification through the bridge hardware. The Alarm.com / CHeKT relationship the dealer has built stays exactly the same - TetherX just gives it a cleaner, more reliable video data source upstream.

For dealers in the Alarm.com channel post-acquisition (announcement 11 February 2025), running TetherX as the VMS layer and CHeKT as the monitoring layer is the cleanest split-of-responsibility setup. Each platform owns the piece it is built for.

Yes - CHeKT verifies from the live stream and never recorded to the SD cards itself, so removing them does not stop verification. A TetherBox takes over recording on the same cameras and you migrate one site at a time. The full four-step path is above under Failing SD cards? Migrate.

CHeKT keeps pulling your cameras' live stream directly to verify alarms. It does no continuous recording of its own - a design choice, since it is a verification bridge that keeps short event clips rather than a recorder - which is why each camera needed an SD card or NVR for the real 24/7 footage. The TetherBox records the same cameras in parallel, so recording moves to TetherX with no change to how CHeKT verifies.

Historical playback simply lives in TetherX: operators and customers open the TetherX dashboard or app directly, with full-resolution search and multi-site, so nothing needs to route back through CHeKT. The hand-off we are building (in active development) is the event side: when TetherX AI detects a person or vehicle, the TetherBox raises a single verified video event inside CHeKT over its own bridge API - the documented method Camect and Ava already use - so the operator gets one clean event instead of slow live-view verification. No ONVIF Profile G is required on either side. Give us access to a test bridge and we typically finalise and confirm the flow within two to three weeks.

On 11 February 2025 Alarm.com Holdings (NASDAQ: ALRM) announced a majority-stake acquisition of CHeKT, with terms undisclosed. CHeKT operates as an Alarm.com subsidiary; the platform continues to ship to its existing central-station partners (Emergency24, Southwest Dispatch, etc.) and is now also distributed through the wider Alarm.com dealer channel (12,000+ dealers per Alarm.com's published count). The Alarm.com pitch positions CHeKT as the proactive video-monitoring layer of its commercial security stack.

For TetherX, the practical read is that CHeKT now has materially stronger distribution than it did as a standalone vendor. The architectural conversation does not change - TetherX is still the cloud VMS, CHeKT is still the RVM bridge + operator portal - but more dealers will ask the question, which is why this page exists.