I was recently approached by someone concerned about adding some measure of security to their home.
One of the great things about living in a town like Meaford is that the crime rate is so low that security is not a major concern. She accurately pointed out that with a property that backs on to a forested area there is a built-in vulnerability as the forest provides a means of quick escape for burglar. Although she wants to address this problem, but she made it clear that she doesn’t want a full-blown elaborate security system.
At first I thought that it was a low budget that made her want to avoid a full system, but we spoke further, I found that wasn’t the issue. It’s simply that she hates technology and doesn’t want the responsibility of having to worry about arming and disarming a system. I can understand as I’ve run into it before. I once installed a good security system in a home that rented a room to a boarder, partitioned into two areas so that it could work as two systems in one. After installation, I explained to the owner how to use it and left the user’s manual with her. Following up some time later, I found that the system was never used. She was intimidated by what seemed a complicated system and hadn’t absorbed my instructions for its simple operation. So she just didn’t use it. This appeared to be a similar situation.
There’s nothing I like better than to be given a problem to solve. I immediately started wondering about how to put a system in place that could virtually run itself, so that the homeowner would get a sense of security without the responsibility of having to actually manage the system.
Most security systems include an array of magnetic contacts on doors and windows along with other sensors to detect motion, smoke, gas, glass breaking or water seeping. All of these sensors are constantly monitored by a remote monitoring station that will fly into action when an alarm is tripped. To use the system, the homeowner has to be constantly changing the mode of the system: AWAY if the house is left empty, HOME if someone is in the house but they want the perimeter to be protected, and DISARM to turn the system off completely (except for things like smoke detectors which are always on). The home owner has to remember their four digit code to access the system, and maybe each family member has a separate code for individual access. For some people that’s just too much. It’s not uncommon for large sophisticated security systems to sit idle because the owner is afraid of hitting the wrong button and accidentally summoning the police or fire department.
So how can we provide security without the hassle of having to manage the system?
There may be a solution in opting for surveillance rather than a security system. This would call for one or two cameras permanently aimed at the vulnerable area, in this case, the back wall of the house. These cameras are fed to a Digital Video Recorder, or DVR.
Digital Video Recorders used for surveillance in both residential and commercial applications have become quite sophisticated in the past few years. They are actually dedicated computers with hard drives to record the images of the cameras. The images captured on the DVR can be simultaneously fed to a device called a modulator which inserts the signal on a television channel so that you can see it with a click of the remote. Because they are tracked and annotated by time and date, it’s easy to find an image that was captured at a specific moment. The images are stored for a period of time, which can be programmed at the outset and then automatically refreshed. This means the system can operate entirely on its own without a need for human intervention around the clock.
The handiest thing about a DVR is that a certain portion of the camera view can be designated as an alarm zone, so that any movement within that area triggers an alarm. This means you can highlight the vulnerable areas, like doors and windows, as specific alarm zones while still capturing images of the entire area that the camera sees. It can work the other way around as well, by outlining an area inside of which there is no alarm. This allows for the possibility of the doggy door to be omitted from an area which is otherwise fully alarmed. The system also allows an extra input from a security sensor so you can augment the video surveillance with motion detectors or contacts.
The DVR has an output that can be fed to a siren that would scream when an alarm is triggered in the highlighted zone. If that’s too harsh, it could sound a chime in a specific location such as the Master Bedroom. When the alarm sounds, you flip on the TV to see what caused it. If you miss the alarm for any reason, you still have a video record of the event that you can retrieve instantly.
An added bonus of this type of security setup is that you can also link it to the Internet, which allows you to check out the camera image on your laptop from any destination.
To automatically run the system, you can schedule when the alarm is active by the day and hour, while it still records continuous video. If you pre-schedule the most vulnerable times that occur on a consistent basis, you can leave the system to watch over you and not have to worry about remembering a code.
That does it! It doesn’t have the scope and flexibility of a full-fledged security system but it’s a form of security that you can install and forget about until you need it.
The main goal of all modern electronics is to make life simpler, even if it often seems to be the opposite. The complexity of modern home control systems may be intimidating but they are designed to provide one button operation. Like the GOOD NIGHT button beside your bed that turns the whole house off. Or the MOVIE button on your remote that performs the steps of half a dozen remotes in sequence to start up your movie. When it comes right down to it the most important thing about any technology is how easy it is to use.
Bill Monahan is a “smart home” specialist who has been in the construction industry for thirty years, with the last twelve devoted exclusively to residential electronics. While he provides and installs products he sees his main mission as making homeowners comfortable with the new technologies.
