  In the last 15 years, 6 dedicated observation programs were carried out to
monitor ~20 deg around the galactic center for transient activity above a few
keV. Transient activity from low-mass X-ray binaries shows a strong preference
for this field. Two programs are currently active, with the Wide Field Cameras
on BeppoSAX and the Proportional Counter Array on RXTE. The coverage of these
programs is fairly extensive, with typical sensitivities of a few mCrab and an
angular resolution of a few arcminutes which is better than that of typical
all-sky monitor devices. Fifteen transients with peak fluxes above 10 mCrab
were discovered with these instruments so far (equivalent to 12 +/- 4 such
transients per year over the whole sky), and on top of that BeppoSAX-WFC
detected about 2000 X-ray bursts. We summarize some recent results.
