Gearfuse Technology, Science, Culture & More
A burglar alarm operates on the idea that anyone who hears it going off will feel a sense of civic duty and find out what’s going on. Home insurers used to give a discount on your home insurance if you had an alarm fitted! Unfortunately, most people’s sense of civic duty isn’t what it used to be and we tend to ignore alarms going off unless it’s our own car or home alarm. Part of the problem is that, in dense urban areas in particular, there are so many false alarms going off all the time that it’s hard to get too excited when you do hear one!
Thankfully, the security market has responded to this by coming up with some innovative new alarm solutions, which work and can be controlled by your mobile phone. You might be wondering why you would want to be able to control your burglar alarm with your mobile phone… Imagine you are out of town and your alarm goes off. If you have a GSM dialling burglar alarm, the alarm system calls or sends an SMS to alert to that your alarm has been activated. It can also be programmed to alert some of your close friends and neighbours nearby who will be able to go and check out why the alarm system is ringing. If it’s a false alarm and everything seems in order you’ll be able to use your mobile phone to activate or deactivate your burglar alarm and reset the system so that a) your alarm doesn’t keep going off all night until you get home and b) the alarm system isn’t simply turned off.
A GSM dialling burglar alarm can form an integral part of a smart home security system, which may also include a CCTV camera system that can also be monitored from your mobile phone or computer. This means that if your alarm goes off you’ll be able to check if there is an intruder by watching the live video feed on your mobile.
The advantage of a GSM dialling burglar alarm is that, unlike a landline-based alarm system, there is no danger of a potential intruder cutting your phone line and stopping the alarm system contacting you or anyone else you have designated it to dial. It’s worth remembering, however, that if you use a pay-as-you-go sim card in your burglar alarm, you need to make sure it’s always topped up as otherwise it might as well not be there at all. Many people now opt for a low monthly cost sim-only mobile contract to make sure the sim card in the alarm system is always operable.
Once you have a dialling burglar alarm system installed the last piece of the puzzle is to find close friends and neighbours who are happy to have their phone number added to the alarm system. What this means is that, should the alarm be set off, it won’t just be you that gets a phone call or text message, and, unlike when a neighbour hears an alarm going off, people tend to respond to a phone call alerting them that an alarm has been set off. At the very least your neighbours will call you to check if it’s a false alarm. You could try alternative security methods, but it’s probably best to play it safe!
