Best home security system/monitoring?

[schmuckley]

2-3 pitbulls,and a couple guns.

 

[alkemyst]

You dumbass gun people (I own guns).

When you are not at home, your guns do no good except get stolen like the idiots you are.

 

[KK]

You dumbass gun people (I own guns).

When you are not at home, your guns do no good except get stolen like the idiots you are.

See lefties, background checks don't work.

 

[mizzou]

ADT Pulse has been very reliable for me so far and it's very easy to get ahold of an actual person if you have an alarm sounding or an alarm problem.

Their app is also very stable and useful.

It is a bit expensive, but I know from experience that many fly-by-night alarm monitoring companies have terrible quality control and customer service.

 

[alkemyst]

See lefties, background checks don't work.

Don't cry bro, dry your eye.

 

[Hugo Drax]

So we had a breakin next door to our house, and with a new job now I can probably afford a good security system, what are folks thoughts?

I want to hire a security company to install a good system and then pay for monitoring somewhere separately (because I'd rather pay $500 for the equipment and $5 a month for monitoring). Plus, we have a lot of equipment already in place, it is just really old.

Any thoughts on getting this done?

Note: I have Windows Phone devices, which I'd like to use for monitoring if possible... again, would love to know how to get started without getting big names (ie ADT/etc) for obscene monitoring fees that I could use a third party for. And also, those third parties would be great to know also!

Thanks!

 

[Hugo Drax]

Not really...and that shotgun is just going to be stolen when you are not home as chances are it's not in a safe.

A dog / alarm sign are about equally effective unless you are being targeted for a particular reason.

Those looking for guns will usually kill a dog, same with those looking for drugs.

99.9999994% of Thieves want the least trouble when committing burglary. They want no fuss, they just want to go in get what they want and get out. So if they hear a pair of nasty sounding dogs behind the door, they will just move on to the next home.

 

[boomerang]

99.9999994% of Thieves want the least trouble when committing burglary. They want no fuss, they just want to go in get what they want and get out. So if they hear a pair of nasty sounding dogs behind the door, they will just move on to the next home.

But I don't want one dog let alone two.

 

[alkemyst]

99.9999994% of Thieves want the least trouble when committing burglary. They want no fuss, they just want to go in get what they want and get out. So if they hear a pair of nasty sounding dogs behind the door, they will just move on to the next home.

I agree, but also disagree to that number.

Most burglaries are targeted sadly. Either one's own kids, their kids or one's neighbors.

If they know you have / do drugs and/or have a lot of guns or especially stolen property already; you are a target (and if you have stolen shit; I sort of feel you have asked for it).

If they can see your dogs in the window and they are a couple of basset hounds, chances are it's on.

Random burglaries will skip those with video, signs, dogs, and other visible security; there is low-hanging fruit out there.

 

[alkemyst]

But I don't want one dog let alone two.

Call up / check out AlarmSystemStore.com They are cheap and excellent.

If you want cameras CCTVCameraPros.com is excellent and cheap as well. They are local to me and Veteran-Owned and Operated. They used to do free seminars down here (they may still do) and demo gear, have raffles and feed those that came a decent lunch. I only have a simple video need now, but when I end up in the house I am keeping I plan to have them quote me out a comprehensive package.

I was burglarized to the tune of a $40K+ loss which only $30k was insurable. My tools, computers, jewelry and cash in the house capped the policy.

That was like 5+ years ago and I am still finding things I lost and never reported. Like another $5K at least.

One more thing I will recommend, despite what your insurance company tells you. If you have a major loss a few pictures/a video is not going to get them paying you. My ex-wife took a TON of pet pictures. Most of everything that was stolen was in them. I had pictures of my workshop restoration and most of my tools. They came back with around $10K or so they'd cover and if I needed / wanted more paid out I'd need receipts and serial numbers Less than 1/4 of my loss.

Fortunately, almost everything I bought online and/or sent myself an email on the purchase and my computer was not stolen. Every other computer/laptop was stolen in my house. My full tower I built into my desk. You have to disassemble it in a special way to get it out from under it.

Keep receipts from all major (and even minor) purchases. Fuck, they stole food out of my fridge and freezer even and all my paper towels and toilet paper.

 

[rh71]

I currently pay almost $200/yr for central station monitoring and have all the sensors I need installed. But I don't have cellular monitoring (someone could just cut my phone / FIOS line). My guy says it would cost $200 to add a 4g cellular communicator and be an additional $120/yr for the cellular monitoring. Is this about right?

I'm looking for a simple add-on to the current system that enables cellular and isn't anything over $20/mo. total for monitoring. Unheard of? I don't need all the internet-connected fancy stuff.

 

[zanejohnson]

I was thinking about this for my new place and while I'm definitely going to put some fakes up, is there a good DVR disguised as something thieves ordinarily wouldn't want? I'm thinking even an old Linux box would appear valuable to thieves so they'd just jack that too and I'd have no footage.

have the machine backup to a cloudstorage solution..... that way no matter what happens you still have your footage

 

[alkemyst]

I currently pay almost $200/yr for central station monitoring and have all the sensors I need installed. But I don't have cellular monitoring (someone could just cut my phone / FIOS line). My guy says it would cost $200 to add a 4g cellular communicator and be an additional $120/yr for the cellular monitoring. Is this about right?

I'm looking for a simple add-on to the current system that enables cellular and isn't anything over $20/mo. total for monitoring. Unheard of? I don't need all the internet-connected fancy stuff.

My company can do that (if you install which isn't hard) for $150 plus $150 for year for the Cell bill + monitoring.

Make sure the cell service is included in that $120/yr. Many leave that out.

I pay $100 for yearly central station monitoring and it's excellent. They call about everything. My dad had ADT that never even hooked his smokes/heats up to monitoring even after they found that out and they came back out to fix it, it turned out they didn't monitor it. Another friend that had ADT had a panic situation and they asked him if he was sure he wanted to use "that password". They got their ass beat up and robbed.

 

[alkemyst]

have the machine backup to a cloudstorage solution..... that way no matter what happens you still have your footage

Depends on bandwidth needs. Four+ cameras at real-time high res make cloud solutions (and local wireless ones) not practical.

Put your DVR in the attic if you can.

Depending if you rent versus own there are more options.

In a rental you can probably cut a piece of drywall out and put the unit behind it somewhere. If done right should be easy to patch it up and make it invisible depending on wall treatments and the like.

The people that broke into my house displaced all the books on my bookshelves so using cases that look like classic books make still get you screwed.

I don't see many burglars going into an attic. If you do run cables though either secure your DVR and/or the cables so they can't just reel them back. Simple staples can do this for the cabling.

Also live camera feed is great...so you can see what is happening if your alarm goes off on your cameras.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Dogs are not a security system, they are a victim while the house is being robbed. If they're too big to fit in the microwave they might be lucky to get a faster less painful death, but either way, they're not going to stop someone who is a determined criminal.

 

[Hugo Drax]

Dogs are not a security system, they are a victim while the house is being robbed. If they're too big to fit in the microwave they might be lucky to get a faster less painful death, but either way, they're not going to stop someone who is a determined criminal.

yeah but how would a thief handle 30 Presa Canarios running towards from all different directions once the surprise hatches open. :biggrin:

 

[rh71]

Dogs are not a security system, they are a victim while the house is being robbed. If they're too big to fit in the microwave they might be lucky to get a faster less painful death, but either way, they're not going to stop someone who is a determined criminal.

Heh the thief that broke into my parents' house left our Pomeranian alone completely - he was still locked in the kitchen where the entry point was. It probably made a ton of noise too but I guess the thief didn't care.

 

[mizzou]

I think dogs are a good deterrent because of their excellent early warning capabilities. Unless they are scitzo, when they bark that certain way u know something is going on outsidet

 

[Shyatic]

Well I did a lot of research, and I couldn't bring myself to using ADT/FrontPoint/etc because the equipment they sell is ridiculously easy to install yourself, and they are basically charging you a huge premium for monitoring.

Instead, I decided to get a bit more advanced of a system; it doesn't have cellular capability which I agree is nice, but for my purposes it is also irrelevant. Our power lines are buried in our neighborhood so nobody can "cut" my power, nor my internet.

So instead, I bought a home automation setup using Smart Things.

I have two presence detectors that will arm/disarm the system if we leave or enter the house, without any keypad entry. I have wireless motion sensors that detect movement at two points in the house.

Additionally, I have a wireless alarm that has a battery backup wired into the house as well. It's more of a deterrent than anything else, but the nice thing is that I can have multiple alarms; so if a thief breaks one, then another will continue to sound. I will add more in the future as I figure out where to put them

I also have an old Kindle Fire (first gen) that I've rooted and am securly mounting it on an entry wall. It will serve as a backup to the presence detection, so that I can disarm the system via "keypad". However if the Kindle Fire gets broken well... that doesn't bother me too much as the alarm continues to work.

On top of this, I've added IP cameras around the house that are external, and work on movement and automatically upload to the cloud and send me an email. So by the time you break it, I already have a nice picture of you sent to my phone.

All in all, the system is costing me about $500, but I pay no monitoring fees and the other conveniences I get (ala home automation) make it even sweeter.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Cool stuff, I actually regret not going the DIY route when I got mine. You can still get 3rd party monitoring that's not as expensive as the premium ones like ADT and Protectron. I'm paying like $50/mo for monitoring which is kinda ridiculous when I think about it. It's a 5 year contract too. Yeah, I got the equipment free but really I could have done all this myself with arduino. I already have some monitoring stuff like mouse traps, hydrogen, power outage etc... would not really be that complicated to add motion sensors and door contacts on that system too.

I think when my contract is near the end I might look at doing that. Though I would imagine after 5 years they'd let me keep the equipment anyway, then I can either try to talk the price down or move to another company. Heck, I work at a NOC, I could probably just ask my boss if I can send the alarms there.

 

[alkemyst]

Well I did a lot of research, and I couldn't bring myself to using ADT/FrontPoint/etc because the equipment they sell is ridiculously easy to install yourself, and they are basically charging you a huge premium for monitoring.

Instead, I decided to get a bit more advanced of a system; it doesn't have cellular capability which I agree is nice, but for my purposes it is also irrelevant. Our power lines are buried in our neighborhood so nobody can "cut" my power, nor my internet.

So instead, I bought a home automation setup using Smart Things.

I have two presence detectors that will arm/disarm the system if we leave or enter the house, without any keypad entry. I have wireless motion sensors that detect movement at two points in the house.

Additionally, I have a wireless alarm that has a battery backup wired into the house as well. It's more of a deterrent than anything else, but the nice thing is that I can have multiple alarms; so if a thief breaks one, then another will continue to sound. I will add more in the future as I figure out where to put them

I also have an old Kindle Fire (first gen) that I've rooted and am securly mounting it on an entry wall. It will serve as a backup to the presence detection, so that I can disarm the system via "keypad". However if the Kindle Fire gets broken well... that doesn't bother me too much as the alarm continues to work.

On top of this, I've added IP cameras around the house that are external, and work on movement and automatically upload to the cloud and send me an email. So by the time you break it, I already have a nice picture of you sent to my phone.

All in all, the system is costing me about $500, but I pay no monitoring fees and the other conveniences I get (ala home automation) make it even sweeter.

The NID behind your house (which everyone has) is where they'd 'cut' your lines. It's very rare, but also most security systems have a method of monitoring that and the alarm will sound off when that happens. At the higher end of security, there are 2 way communicators to a central station that will call police if the line is but.

At $500, I'd be curious if those IP cameras are going to be good enough for any kind of positive identification.

 

[alkemyst]

I think dogs are a good deterrent because of their excellent early warning capabilities. Unless they are scitzo, when they bark that certain way u know something is going on outsidet

The problem is burglaries happen when the people are not home.

Most dogs will not attack and if they do they can be easily subdued. However; most will skip the house if a dog is present unless they know the take is going to be good (high value jewelry, weapons and drugs are things people will kill pets for)

 

[alkemyst]

yeah but how would a thief handle 30 Presa Canarios running towards from all different directions once the surprise hatches open. :biggrin:

Someone that can afford 30 Presa Canarios would be stupid not to have a monitored alarm to begin with.

 

[dartworth]

Well I did a lot of research, and I couldn't bring myself to using ADT/FrontPoint/etc because the equipment they sell is ridiculously easy to install yourself, and they are basically charging you a huge premium for monitoring.

~snip~

Any chance you can post links or pics?

Thanks

 

[alkemyst]

I like DSC, but there is nothing wrong with the other like Honeywell, etc.

This would be great for a small dwelling / apartment for under $300 and everything is wireless.

http://www.alarmsystemstore.com/DSC-Impassa-Wireless-Alarm-Systems-s/149.htm