Ideas For Early Warning System To Protect When At Home

[swift]

I'd be interested to hear what sort of setup you have at home, in terms beams, sensors, cctv and the way that you are alerted.

 

This post is about the functional components that together would make the ultimate home security in terms of detection rather than physical security - gates, locks etc

 

If you have an intruder on your property, you want to be alerted as soon as possible, this includes other family members in the house.

I think most cctv allows you to send alerts to mobiles etc, which you then have to take out and tap buttons, which I guess can get quite annoying as most of the time it will friends/family coming in/out of house.

 

I currently have a pir sensor which can turn on a plug and has a chime bell. I have one plug for now, but plan to have several round the house.  All hooked up to monitors and lights, the monitors will be displaying cctv cameras around the outside of the house.

 

This way when anyone steps foot on the property the monitors turn on (as well as say a lamp and a bell) and family members will be within eye sight of a monitor and can instantly take the appropriate action.  The beauty of this, is that it is quite unobtrusive on family life and is quite useful. You can quickly see who is approaching your property, and gives you more time to take whatever action you need e.g. a quick tidy up  or if its gran and she needs a hand etc.

 

After a period of time 1-2mins (user configurable) the monitors turn off thus saving energy.

 

Its quite difficult to get different bits to work e.g. dvr's can't turn on monitors. Luckily found a pir sensor that turns on a plug.

I'm thinking of moving from pir sensor to beams as currently the sensor only goes off when someone is half way up the drive. (Need to see what is involved to get beams to turn on a plug.)

 

One of the drawbacks of monitors or tv in this case, it currently takes 8 seconds to turn on which is valuable time lost.

Ideally would like to move to ipad/tablet, but so far, have not found an app that would come on automatically also problem with how do you send alerts/alarms to it.

 

I would welcome your thoughts, ideas and feeback, or any ideas on how to make the ultimate home security.

 

 

Thx.

[MrHappy]

You appear to be looking towards a "Smart Home" my 1st thought would be crestron & axis, my 2nd thought is are you able & willing to pay for it ?

[swift]

I already have this working, the "brains" of the system cost me around £60 for a wireless pir sensor, a wireless chime bell and a wireless plug.  I have a cheap camera outside (for now till I get/research proper cameras hence my other post).  I have for now hooked the plug up to my 19" lcd tv and some xmas lights .

The system works very well, with hardy any false alarms. (I had people on other forums trying to convince me not to go for cheap pir and stick to more expensive gjd and optex type.)

 

There is no need for cre$ton, they're are more companies coming out with home automation type stuff couple with home security all the time all at very decent prices.

[whistle]

Do you have a big display of xmas lights at your place.

You may get better coverage off the camera if you fit it in a tree looking at the whole garden.

[james.wilson]

What happens when the power goes off?

 

If you want something pro level and reliable then as Mr Happy says you need to be looking at proper Home automation. You could make something up with homeseer for example and zigbee / z-wave devices. I use external pirs (GJD elites) connected to my cctv system which is connected to the tv network.

 

I use my intruder alarm panel to control my heating, lighting and cctv detection. I use the CCTV system for display and recording locally and remotly via pc, smartphone, tablet. My tvs also show the images bt not automatically. They can but its annoying.

 

If you go the way your going none of us will have an idea on it as we wouldnt do it this way. You will end up with something highly fragmented and changes and general day to day life with it will be a pain. The people that said about using gjd / optex etc were IMO correct.

[Oxo]

Do you have a big display of xmas lights at your place.

You may get better coverage off the camera if you fit it in a tree looking at the whole garden.

Nailed to the tree?

[swift]

What happens when the power goes off?

 

If you want something pro level and reliable then as Mr Happy says you need to be looking at proper Home automation. You could make something up with homeseer for example and zigbee / z-wave devices. I use external pirs (GJD elites) connected to my cctv system which is connected to the tv network.

 

I use my intruder alarm panel to control my heating, lighting and cctv detection. I use the CCTV system for display and recording locally and remotly via pc, smartphone, tablet. My tvs also show the images bt not automatically. They can but its annoying.

 

If you go the way your going none of us will have an idea on it as we wouldnt do it this way. You will end up with something highly fragmented and changes and general day to day life with it will be a pain. The people that said about using gjd / optex etc were IMO correct.

 

Thx, great post and to the point.  I've come across z-wave not zigbee or homeseer so will check these out.

 

Power going off is quite rare no?

 

The pir and the chime bell currently run on batteries.  Later down the line, I am thinking of having some solar powered infra-red beams installed too.

I'm sure they/you're right in terms of reliability and professional kit on gjd/optex etc - as no doubt if it broke down it would be their reputation on the line.

But, for my use, the pir I put in are working just great and have had no problems, I thought I'd be getting quite a few false alarms, but touchwood, all good so far.

 

The idea is to use seperate and dedicated monitors purely for cctv display - which come on and off automatically when presence outside is detected.

The central idea behind this, is for it to work seamlessly in the background allowing you to simply glance at a nearby monitor to show you what is happening outside and carry on with what you are doing.

 

For the one monitor I have working so far, it has been great.  You get to see and able to react in realtime to events outside your house before you would be able to normally i.e. when the doorbell goes.

 

The humble doorbell, something in this day and age should be confined to a museum.  The irony of a doorbell, is to let you know, that someone is at your front door, otherwise you'd be none the wiser someone is on your property.  Surely, this should be the other way round.  You should be the first to know that someone is on your property, right?

[sixwheeledbeast]

Power going off is quite rare no?

If someone wishes to break in there are ways and means.

[swift]

Do you have a big display of xmas lights at your place.

You may get better coverage off the camera if you fit it in a tree looking at the whole garden.

I usually relish a put down and am biting my tongue to respond in kind.

But as its the season of goodwill, I will simply wish you and everyone else a Merry Christmas.

[Joe Harris]

I think swifts title of 'Ultimate home security' might be leading a lot of the professionals here to rightly point out the issues of correct detection, backup batteries and overall set up.

 

From what swift has posted I understand his point about the doorbell etc... and happen to agree, but perhaps this thread would have been better titled as 'Ultimate doorbell replacement' - Then we could all chip in without any animosity or arguments =)

 

Crestron is pretty fantastic as a few here have mentioned but the costs can be demanding.

 

I have plenty of time for swift in wanting to make a homebrew version of the same but I would urge caution if you are not a qualified electrician or similar when it comes to working with anything other than pre-prepared switches when it comes to the electricity supply in your home.

 

It is simply not worth the risk.

 

The general route you are taking will "do the job" to a certain degree, but I would not consider it any form of ultimate security.

 

Good luck swift - have you looked at ardiuno yet?

 

Merry (and safe) xmas and a happy new year =)