Yes it is.
If you've visited the Whisker Labs Ting website, you may have noticed that Ting normally retails for $349 for the first year and $99 annually thereafter, but...none of that applies to you!
Your Ting sensor and three (3) years of service are entirely free and provided at no cost to you, courtesy of State Farm.
In other words, there are no monthly or annual subscription costs to you - at all - for three years. Not to mention, your Ting sensor ships free and has a full lifetime warranty.
A smartphone and a Wi-Fi connection with internet access are required to install Ting.
The Ting app is not compatible with desktops or laptop computers.
Most homes keep their Internet/Wi-Fi 'up' and connected 24/7, which is required for Ting. Part-time Internet connections are not advisable as the Ting service requires a 24/7 connection.
It is very easy. Ting is designed to be entirely do-it-yourself (DIY) no matter your 'skill' level.
The Ting Sensor app guides you through the 2-minute process. Professional installation is never required.
Sooner is always better. The sooner Ting is installed, the sooner it can start to help protect your family and home.
The program terms ask that you install Ting within 10 days after delivery, however, most homeowners install Ting shortly after it arrives. This is because installation is just 2 simple steps, and only takes a few short minutes from start to finish. Once you download and start the Ting Sensor app on your smartphone, it will walk you through the process.
If you are not able to install in the first few days, you'll receive installation reminders from Whisker Labs by email - and by text/SMS if you opted-in during enrollment.
BUT - Life happens. So, if another priority arises that will likely delay you, please just let Whisker Labs know you need more time. They can adjust reminders to suit your special situation.
Did you enroll and receive Ting but missed that Wi-Fi and a smartphone are required? Please contact Whisker Labs for directions for sending your Ting sensor back so we can share it with another policyholder / family.
State Farm is regularly evaluating the program. Before the end of the 3rd year, State Farm will notify you if the program will be extended as-is, changed, or discontinued. No payment information is requested at the time of enrollment, and you can cancel at any time; there is no obligation to continue the service.
State Farm is committed to keeping your family and home safe. As part of that mission, State Farm has partnered with Whisker Labs, the makers of Ting. Ting has proven to help prevent electrical fires, which are the most devastating type of house fire.
At this time, this offer is valid for State Farm homeowner policyholders in California, Texas, Arizona and Ohio with a property insured by an active State Farm non-tenant homeowners policy.
State Farm offers Ting to policyholders at no cost for a minimum of three years but does not currently offer a policy discount on top of the free Ting service.
This offer is valid for policyholders with a property insured by an active State Farm non-tenant homeowners policy in Arizona, California, or Texas. This means that the property address specified in your enrollment falls under one or more of the following non-eligible conditions:
- It is not in a state that is currently in the program.
- It does not have an active State Farm non-tenant homeowners policy.
- It is a rentable property.
- It is a business property and not a residential property.
The large majority of homes in the U.S. have one main electrical panel and only require a single Ting sensor for whole-home coverage. If your home happens to have more than one main electrical panel as described here, it requires a Ting sensor for each additional main panel. If your home is eligible for this program, State Farm will allow the additional sensor at no cost. Email help@whiskerlabs.com for more.
The State Farm Ting program currently includes main housing structures/dwellings. If you have a detached garage, guest house, or other structure, you may be eligible for an additional sensor depending on your policy and eligibility confirmation.
Participating in the Ting program will not impact insurance coverage. State Farm is only informed when a potential fire hazard was identified and mitigated. When a customer enrolls for Ting, they agree to terms and conditions for both Whisker Labs (Ting) and State Farm. Following is an excerpt from the State Farm Customer Participant Agreement: “THIS AGREEMENT IS NOT AN INSURANCE CONTRACT AND DOES NOT MODIFY OR CHANGE ANY TERM, CONDITION, OR COVERAGE WITHIN YOUR INSURANCE POLICY"
Upon Program Enrollment: While State Farm likely already has this information, Whisker Labs (Ting) shares your name, address, phone, and email with us so we can verify that the enrollment meets eligibility requirements for the free offer.
Following Ting Activation: Whisker Labs does not share signal data from your sensor with State Farm. Even the voltage data needed to generate your weekly email power quality reports is not shared with us.
What State Farm does receive from Whisker Labs are summary counts of power quality events and any identified fire hazards. And in the event of an identified fire hazard, a summary of the hazard is shared with us following remediation.
It is very easy. Ting is designed to be entirely do-it-yourself (DIY) no matter your 'skill' level.
The Ting Sensor app guides you through the 2-minute process. Professional installation is never required.
No. Ting is a smart home service with an intelligent plug-in sensor at its core. The Ting Sensor app facilitates the installation of the sensor and keeps you in the know. Most importantly, the service includes 24x7 monitoring and full engagement with you in the event of a fire hazard.
Ting monitors your electrical network for the main precursors to electrical fires, micro-arcs, and sparks that develop in faulty wires, loose connections, and faulty appliances or devices. These signals usually develop over weeks and months, so Ting is designed to provide you with advanced warnings to address these hazards before they develop into an electrical fire.
The Ting Sensor app is required to (1) install Ting and (2) keep you informed. This app must be installed on a smartphone or compatible smart device.
Your Ting sensor requires a Wi-Fi connection to access the internet and communicate with the secure Ting servers. While most of the smart data processing occurs on the Ting sensor itself, it checks in with the Ting servers regularly and sends additional signal data in the event a hazard condition is suspected. Wi-Fi also is required for the secure Ting servers to keep your Ting sensor firmware up to date and secure.
The Ting sensor silently measures voltage on the home electrical network. The sensor does not contain any other sensor technology such as microphones, cameras, or motion detectors.
While no technology is infallible, Ting has a proven track record. Over the past several years, tens of thousands of homes and tens of millions of monitoring hours, Ting has not generated any false alarms for homeowners. This means when Ting alerts you of a hazard, it is very likely real.
No hazards on Day 1 is always a good thing. However, Ting is a long-term monitoring solution for the life of your home. Whether your home is old or new, electrical hazards can develop at any time from age, use, wear, deterioration, vibration, DIY projects, water leaks, and so on. And, once a hazard develops, the signals it generates are random and unpredictable. Many hazards develop slowly over time and surface sporadically based on power consumption and other factors. By keeping Ting installed, you afford your electrical network expert monitoring for any hazards that may appear over time. It is like having a diligent electrician on duty 24x7x365.
Definitively, no. Whisker Labs would quickly lose homeowners' trust and business if they employed a practice of identifying hazards that would not be considered a potential fire or safety threat.
Failure to respond and adequately remediate fire hazards could result in a fire, electric shock, injury, death or severe damage to, or loss of your home. In many cases, remediation of the hazard simply involves halting the use of an offending device, such as a heating blanket, sump pump, lamp, or pet feeder (all of these are real examples, among many more). In other cases, a hazard requires professional remediation. Put another way, not all electrical fire hazards identified by Ting need a licensed electrician to correct the hazard condition. However, if the Ting Care team does contact you, it is because we've identified a legitimate hazard.
Refusing to address a hazard runs contrary to the spirit of the service. The Ting service is designed to help keep you and your home safe from electrical fire hazards. When Whisker Labs provides instructions or otherwise recommends repairs for an electrical fire hazard, they do so only after expert and professional consideration of all factors, including your safety and security. Regardless, you have the right to refuse to address a hazard identified by Ting. It is essential to know that if you decide not to follow instructions/recommendations to remediate a hazard, this may impact Whisker Labs' ability to continue providing you the service and reasonably monitor the health of your home's electrical system. As such, Whisker Labs may elect to cancel your service per Whisker Labs’ Ting Service Terms here.
Not all electrical fire hazards identified by Ting require a licensed electrician to correct the hazard condition. In many cases, remediation of the hazard simply involves halting the use of an offending device, such as a heating blanket, sump pump, lamp, or pet feeder (all of these are real examples, among many more). In other cases, a hazard requires professional remediation.
Ting is a full concierge service. If Ting detects a potential fire hazard in your home you will receive: (1) an App Notification, (2) a personal text from a Ting Fire Operations Engineer, (3) a personal phone call from a Ting Fire Operations Engineer, and (4) an personal email. Our highly trained Ting Operations Engineer will walk you through details on the hazard that Ting has discovered and a plan to resolve/mitigate the hazard. If needed, a Ting Certified License Electrician will be dispatched (In full coordination with you) to help find and fix the problem. Ting will cover up to $1,000 of the contractor effort, which almost fully covers all costs – meaning you will typically not pay anything.
Whisker Labs works with an extensive network of authorized independent licensed contractors across the United States trained to find, diagnose, and fix the types of hazards that Ting identifies.
No. When on-site service is recommended, in no event will an authorized contractor be scheduled without your written or verbal consent and approval.
Whisker Labs refers to this as their network of 'authorized independent contractors.' Meaning, all contractors are professionally licensed and bonded and provide electrical services in your local area. Importantly, they have been introduced to Ting and have been trained on how Ting works. Yet, they remain independent from Whisker Labs. The Ting Service is about safety, not repair referrals. Simply, Whisker Labs is not compensated for referring repair services, nor does Whisker Labs' sell leads' for repair services. And with the exception of administering your service credit that comes with the Service, Whisker Labs' Authorized Independent Contractors are not compensated by Whisker Labs.
No, Whisker Labs nor State Farm make money when professional mitigation is required. As mentioned above, the Ting Service is about safety, not repair referrals. In fact, labor for professional mitigation service is a cost covered under the State Farm free Ting Program's service credit of up to $1,000. See more here regarding Whisker Labs’ Ting Service Terms.
No. Unless You explicitly request otherwise during remediation, Whisker Labs-authorized independent contractors have agreed to execute necessary repairs only. They won't provide or otherwise solicit products or services not required to remediate the Ting-identified fire hazard.
Whisker Labs realizes you may prefer to use your own licensed contractor, who may not already be a Whisker Labs authorized, independent contractor. If service is required to repair a Ting-identified fire hazard, you have the right to use your preferred licensed contractor. Whisker Labs would need to coordinate directly with your contractor. You can read more about the use of your own electrician here in Whisker Labs’ Ting Service Terms.
Whisker Labs utilizes special remote diagnostic tools along with real-time data from your Ting sensor during on-site service. Whisker Labs moderates the diagnostic process via phone consultation with the on-site contractor. While Whisker Labs does not direct the contractor in their methods or process, the moderation they provide is an integral part of the service and ensures expedient hazard identification and accurate post-repair confirmation.
Yes. If an electrical fire hazard is known to be on your electrical service's utility side, your utility provider is ordinarily responsible for the repair and associated cost. In this case, Whisker Labs will provide you guidance on how to engage your utility and get the required attention for your home's electrical supply and connection to your utility provider's electric distribution system.
All electronic devices emit some level of EMF. The Ting sensor emits very little compared to most other devices. It consumes very little power and uses standard Wi-Fi to transmit data. Any EMF from the sensor is a very small fraction (practically zero) of what is emitted by other devices such as a laptop or cell phone.
No, it is not. Your privacy is important. By design, Whisker Labs limits the collection and use of personal information to that which is necessary to deliver the Ting service to you reliably. Please refer to the Whisker Labs privacy policy here to review further details on collecting and using personal information.
The Ting Sensor app serves two purposes: installing your sensor and communicating information to you. No device information from your smartphone is used or passed to the Whisker Labs servers. As well, the service does not require access to any data you might have on the phone. Importantly, Whisker Labs does require the use of location services one time only, at the time of installation, solely to confirm the address of the structure where Ting is installed. Following installation, Whisker Labs does not want, need nor use location information
No. The Ting Sensor app does not need your location and does not track the location of your smartphone.
Importantly, the Ting Sensor app retrieves location from your smartphone one time only, during installation, so it can properly register and bind your Ting service to your home. After that, the location of your smartphone is not needed.
When you install, Whisker Labs does their best to 'pre-populate' your home address as accurately as possible using location services on your smartphone. Location services are not always exact. That's why during this step in the installation process, the Ting Sensor app asks you to verify/correct the address where you are installing Ting.
No, Whisker Labs does not share signal data from your sensor with State Farm. Please see the related question under the tab "State Farm Ting Program".
In short, Whisker Labs only shares data required to deliver the Ting service. No information is shared beyond that.
When approved by you, and only in the event that professional remediation is required and has been coordinated with you, Whisker Labs shares your name and address with the repair contractor to facilitate scheduling of the on-site repair. Whisker Labs moderates the visit by phone and provides guidance to the contractor.
When a fire hazard is identified to likely be originating from your Electric Utility, Whisker Labs will share your Ting data with your Utility to support the Utilities effort to fix the hazard that resides outside your home. In severe cases, or in wildfire-prone areas, Whisker Labs may also share Ting data with First Responders who can support mitigation and response efforts.
Please see the Whisker Labs privacy policy here for more details.
Whisker Labs has fully 'hardened' the Ting Sensor app and the Ting sensor to the highest security standards. This minimizes the chances of a person or machine gaining access to Ting resources and using those resources to exercise an attack. As well, Whisker Labs has monitoring systems dedicated to spotting and alerting anomalies that point to a breach, or attempts at a breach.
But it is not enough to just claim all of this. Whisker Labs has trusted, industry-recognized 3rd party organizations to confirm it. They conduct regular software and hardware vulnerability scans and perform 'ethical hacking' - measured and deliberate attempts to penetrate, compromise or otherwise take over the app, the sensor, and our servers - using industry tools as well as known as 'black hat' (bad, malicious) hacking.
Find out more here about how Whisker Labs secures Ting and protects your privacy.