Quick google says they have ways to avoid triggering off pets. I assume they place the detectors higher up or something.
Uhhh, yikes. This would be a completely different conversation I think if you started out with someone might be targeting my daughter as opposed to I am worried about random thieves.
AT&T also has their own home security and home automation service called Digital Life. They were offering package discounts earlier in the year when paired with other services including their newly acquired DirectTV.
I am not sure how they compare to the other security companies, but just wanted to mention it may be worth considering.
What were the circumstances of the past break ins? In my experience nearly 100% of break-ins are due to obvious mistakes e.g. a huge billboard announcing “no one is home for several days!”
Well not literally, but a pile of flyers on the porch, a mess of mail, an unshoveled driveway several days after snow, lights off all evening. If the house has no garage, then lack of cars is another sign.
The one, a couple of years ago, we never figured out. No one other than her had keys to the house, the police could not figure out how they got in the house, all windows and doors were locked and there was no sign of jimmied locks, etc. She did have the locks changed after that, including deadbolts. They took a flat screen TV, iPad, and other electronics. Somehow they did know she was out of the house that evening, because she does have a pretty big dog and she took him with her to her friend’s house for the evening. She left at about 6 that evening, went to her friends house, they spent the evening watching chick flicks, she came back about 10 am, and the house was robbed. She did have to park on the street at that house, but they would have had to have known which was her car.
This recent one: we keep the curtains closed, but we’ve been in and out moving stuff out of the house quite a bit.
A million times this: when moving to a new place, ALWAYS change the locks. This isn’t a matter of trusting whomever lived there before, but over time people hand out keys for pet-sitting, etc. and you never know how many are out there.
And Nesrie is spot-on. If someone is potentially targeting her, there are personal protection options to consider. A person is more vulnerable out of the house, and the walk to and from the car to the home is the easiest for someone who knows her schedule.
Like others have said, lights are very effective for security. Installing well placed motion detection exterior lights is always a good idea. Add alarm stickers and and a alarm sign and you will stop most of the crime of opportunity events.
If you want an easy security system with the added benefits of electronics control, look at something like the Smartthings hub. Add LED smart bulbs, door and window sensors and an inexpensive alarm and you have an effective security system. You can even add cameras if you like. You can find the hubs for under $50 these days and if you shop around you can find the bulbs and sensors easily in the $10- $15 range.
Simplisafe has a 30% off sale on new systems going right now:
(I think this is a referral link for me somehow, but feel free to go directly).
I have a Ring Pro. I hate it.
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Motion detection is hit or miss. I had to lower my sensitivity so it wouldn’t get set off by the sunlight on the trees, and now it won’t even catch the mailman who comes daily. Servers seem unreliable.
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The android app is sucky. Apple one is better. Don’t call Wumpus here please.
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The pro requires 16 v + transformer, test what you have before you go for it. Non-pro doesn’t need 16 v. Now there’s workaround ways to get it working, I bought my own transformer and drilled some holes. Let me know if you want to do this I can provide details.
On the pro side, the camera cloud recording monthly fee is pretty low. Of course, I’m prettttty sure I can walk up and rip off the $300 camera before it gets a chance to upload the video.
I don’t believe in cameras anymore because mine got stolen by a dude with a box.
Set up sensor high above the dog height. My little dog never trigged the indoor motion sensor.
As a comparison, I put in a 3-pack of Nest cameras at my mother’s house so that we could (with her permission) use it to help monitor her. They also have outdoor cameras, but the operation is the same. You can designate areas of the camera screen as interesting, versus not, so limiting the height of what you’re looking at migh help with pets, or someone AT the door versus someone walking by, etc. It also has some face recognition options. It has a ton of notification options for face, movement, watched areas, etc. It also has very decent infrared at night, which really surprised me. I also like that there is a overview page that lets you see all the cameras at once, then you can drill down to a specific one if needed. It is similar in features (2-way voice, etc.)
Probably the only con, which is similar to a lot of the video systems lately, is that you use Nest’s service as the storage, and getting more than one day history involves a subscription (with different tiers.) I see this as a big issue, but since everyone seems to be doing it, I’m just hoping that competition will drive down the pricing model of this kind of stuff over time. The local storage video systems have their own drawbacks, since it allows a potential thief to locate and remove it.
That’s true. Our last house the Ring would go off constantly because it’s all IR based, so anytime a big truck or school bus went by the street in front of our house it would think there was motion (no matter the settings).
At our new house its’ angled well (and not in front of a busy street) so it only goes off for legitimate visitors (and the occasional lizard).
Fun story, the other night our phones go off due to motion at the front door. The dogs know what that mean and started barking and being crazy (their usual selves). We open the front door and no one is there. We load up the VOD a minute later and see the neighbor bringing her young daughter to look at the decorations at the house, then when they hear the dogs they flee (I think they were trying to just take a peek without disturbing us, they know our dogs are harmless). Was hilarious to watch.
I have a nosey neighbor that peeks into houses, I’ve seen her doing it to other neighbors, so I’m sure she does it to mine as well. I live in a townhome, so it’s harder to manage things like that when you share an overall unit with multiple neighbors.
I don’t think there is anything sinister, I know her and her husband, they are retired, seem relatively nice, etc. She’s just a busybody who needs to know what everyone is up to.
But for that reason alone, I’ve considered outdoor cameras at my place. It would mean the world to me, in some strange, petty way, to be able to pull my phone out next time I see her husband and then ask him what she was staring at through the window of someone else’s house, while showing him the picture of her doing it.
Yeah the video processing or upload seems really slow sometimes. Half the time i’ll see an alert, but when I go look it’s empty. Maybe later they’ll be a video up. Kinda defeats the purpose if I end up having to walk to the door anyway.
If this person is sane and really just a busybody harmless person, she is probably one of the best deterrents to crime you have in the neighborhood. She’s the one that will call on an unmarked van sitting in front of your house for an hour while you’re away.
I’ve heard good things about Skybell myself on the door bell front. I’m actually considering it.
I have not experienced that. We only walked to the door because we aren’t far from the door and aren’t scared enough to look through the phone.
When deliveries have been done and triggered the ring while we are out of the house we had no issues loading the live video before the delivery guy was gone.
She actually does that, so that gives me pause. At least I can have dreams of a confrontation! :)
For those of you with Ring and an Android device I eventually figured out that switching the app power setting cut down on the “10 minutes later” phenomena. Mostly. I still get many false positives from the Ring, but at least they aren’t way after the fact. I have high hopes that Lighthouse will make a somewhat affordable doorbell.
Wait, where is this?
Settings–Aps–Ring-Battery- Battery Optimization-All apps from the drop down menu. There might be a less tortuous path.