How to Prevent Burglaries with Home Automation Security
Did you know that most burglaries happen in winter between 4pm and 9pm? The cold season, with its dark afternoons and evenings, is an attractive time for intruders. So it pays to be smart. Well, it pays for your home to be smart, at least. If you’ve ever wondered how to prevent burglaries, then we’d suggest that Home Automation is a great way to do it.
A Smart Home will protect your home even when you’re not in. That’s (just) one of the great things about them… With an automated home, you’re able to:
- Take precautions before anything happens
- Monitor your home – even on the go
- Use existing components for an intelligent, customised alarm system
- Easily enable and disable the intelligent surveillance of your house
- Receive updates if anything should happen
Of course, it’s almost impossible to deter the most determined of thieves, but as most burglars prefer easy access and many break-ins are opportunistic, making life as difficult as possible for intruders is likely to keep your home burglary free!
USE EXISTING COMPONENTS FOR A TAILORED ALARM
If you’re already living in an automated home, when you and/or your family are in, your presence detectors (PIRs) are probably used for lighting control. But they could also be used as an alarm, tripped when someone unauthorised enters.
That’s not all, though – just use your imagination. What else do you have set up in your Smart Home? What else could you employ? Window/door contacts? Music? Lighting? Even blinds? Just picture it – your house blaring out drum n’ bass while all the lights flick on and off and the blinds going up and down repeatedly… Not exactly the ideal burgling environment, is it?!
INTELLIGENT MONITORING OF VULNERABILITIES
You know what the weakest points of any house are, don’t you? There are: the main entrance door, any patio doors, side doors and windows. They’re the vulnerable areas. Obvious, subtle things like closed blinds at windows provide more security and deter intruders, of course. And with the Loxone app, you can check if your blinds are closed or not. If they’re not – you can close them. From anywhere. You can use our new door/window contacts to keep track of any suspicious activity too.
Intelligent monitoring has several advantages, including:
ADVANTAGE #1 – Be informed – instantly!
Intruders breaking in will be picked up by your Smart Home (be it by PIR, window sensor or whatever you have set up). This is instantly relayed to the Miniserver and you’re informed based on your individual settings. So you could receive a phone call, email or text message. Straight away.
ADVANTAGE #2 – Peace of mind
If you’re anything like us, after you leave the house, you’ll often wonder whether you shut all doors and windows fully. Don’t go all the way back home just to check or be left worrying all day – just check in our your app and see! If you’ve door/window sensors installed you’ll be able to check. This isn’t just good for security – it also saves on your heating bill by not letting all that nice warm air rush out of the window!
ADVANTAGE #3 – Safety first
It’s not just about when you’re away from home. If you go to bed and leave the living room window open or garage door wide open, you’re also leaving an open invitation to burglars. Get alerted to the fact on your smartphone or by something you shouldn’t miss – like a flashing light in the bedroom!
And that’s just three…
SAFETY – INSIDE & OUT
With motion sensors set up outside your home, you can have alarms triggered when there’s a disturbance between certain set hours. If you know that it’s unlikely that anyone will approach the perimeter of your house between say Midnight – 6am and 10am – 5pm, you can have security scenes kick in (flashing lights, etc.). You can also be alerted by our Caller Service.
If you have a Loxone Intercom installed and an alert comes through to you, you can check in on your smartphone to see who’s approaching. If it’s someone friendly, you can disable the alarm. If it’s not, you can take the relevant action and call the police.
REMOTE CONTROL & ALARM NOTIFICATION
Your alarm system may be activated by the push of a button/switch or entry of a code. But what if you go away on holiday for any length of time and forget to arm it? Your house will be unprotected for the duration of your time away, won’t it? Well, no. Again, the beauty of having so much control is that you need not be anywhere near home to fiddle with things. Just use the Loxone app wherever you are to change your alarm settings.
Keen to see how Smart Home security works in real life? Check out this case study, ‘the Panorama House’.
OUR RECOMMENDATION FOR YOUR BURGLARY PROTECTION
For a full Loxone Smart home security setup, you’ll need:
- A Miniserver
- Presence and motion detectors
- The Loxone Caller Service
- Window/Door Contacts
- A Loxone Intercom
We’d recommend installation of motion sensors in every room and the placement of contacts on all doors and windows, so the number you’d need would obviously depend on your home.
With the Miniserver at the heart of it all, the corresponding sensors and detectors in place and our free configuration software Loxone Config at your fingertips, a highly secure Smart Home can be implemented quickly and easily. For total peace of mind.
If you’ve got any questions about setting up smart security, then please feel free to contact us. Or have a look at our online ‘Alarm’ documentation. Perhaps the answer’s there!