Home Security Systems?

[williamsGN]

Try www.Safemart.com
Most the systems ADT installs, esp. the 'free ones' are a joke. Also you never own the equipment they put in, once you stop paying the $40 month, they can pull your equipment out. Most of the ADT systems, the burglar comes in and rips the unit off the wall, no call out to the police - exactly what the installer told me when he came and before he left with the uninstalled equipment.

Any system should have the main unit hidden, then your wireless control pad next to the door.

 

[GNTurboTommy]

Wheres eyes cums from. ib sumzbodys unwelcums hangs by my gerage, den dems "HANGS" arounds mi gerage permenatsly!!

 

[Phoneguy]

Both... Outside (30') an be able to read a #plate on a car.. inside I want it so you can SEE who it is... BUT for $16k Ill just get a guy to sit in the driveway with his shotgun What about ones that I can watch the house from a computer as they are robbing me blind ?

Grumpy, here is a tool that will help you in your decision as to what you need to see from that distance. This will help you pick a lens.
Compare the Field of View for Various CCTV Lenses

Megapixel cameras will let you see more detail upon zoom. The higher the megapixel rating the more you will be able to zoom without pixelation. Obviously the higher the megapixel the greater the price. Then you need to figure out how much storage you need, a week, a month? Then there is the recorder itself, DVR, HD DVR, NVR. If you need to save HD quality evidence you need to record at a minimum of 10 fps ( what you see on TV is 30 fps ), the higher the megapixel rating on the camera the lower you can record due to getting much higher resolution to be able to ID someone from the video. Add all of the fps together from all of the cameras and this is the minimum that the DVR needs to be able to record. Clear as mud now huh.

Bryan

 

[XLR8ONU]

So I rock a full wireless system with doors and motions to cover main travel paths of th house. The biggest thing is the layout of the system within your house to cover all areas.

1. Don't waste time and money with all your windows.
Pick critical windows that are in vital areas(kids room, my gun room). Everything else will be covered with well placed motion detectors usually one or two depending on size of your house.

2. Find a company that will do system and install for free. There are tons of companies who do that and all you have to do is sign a contract that you will have it monitored for a certain length of time.

3. Most alarm installers will give you options for system set up. So mine is set up that all doors that are not main entry doors will immediately set off alarm when entered( back door, side garage door where Buick is) the other doors are a 30 second to enter and disarm. Set up for what works best for your family and is easy to use so that you USE IT EVERYDAY. Most people use it for a month and never arm it again.

That's my two cents. I use my alarm everyday and night and I have a Great Dane(140 lbs and very protective) and more guns than most. My thought on dogs is they are only useful when you are home as a distraction, Distract long enough for you to find your target in the sights. Your dog will be defeated eventually if enough time is alotted, which is what an alarm takes away...time.


Would be happy to give you more details if you need them. Let me know

 

[KevinB]

I did an install for a family yesterday that had a pit bull. Their house got broken into. The criminals broke into the house somewhere between 12-3 in the afternoon. They broke in from the Backdoor. When the family got home, their dog was in the backyard unharmed. Somehow the criminals tricked the dog.
If I saw a pit bull, I'd pick another house lol.

I got all kinds of crazy stories. The worst was a few years ago another family was all at work and school. In the middle of the day they got broken into. The family had a suv thatbwas parked in the garage. The burglars found the keys to it in the house. They loaded up the suv. They lost a lot that day.

Here is one on how stupid some criminals are. This lady had a $80k piece of Jewelery stolen from her room. (I'd have that in a safe...some home owners aren't the brightest either lol.) Anyways, same old story....house gets broken into in the middle of the day. Lady finds out her piece of jewelry is gone. Calls her insurance company, insurance company calls an appraiser. The appraiser looks at the pictures of it and says, "that's funny, I just appraised this yesterday for a pawn shop." Turns out the crack head who pawned it off did so 10 minutes down the street and even used hos real name. They didnt pay the burg for it yet either. They called the burg and told him his money was ready. The detective was waiting for him when he showed haha. That's pretty bad imo.

Last one....this was this week too. Went to give one of my customers a bid to replace some equipment. They had monitored smoke detectors. Their salt water aquarium caught on fire. One of the smokes did its job and the fire department was called (nobody home.) The house suffered real bad smoke damage and half of it was butter to the studs...but the house and most of their belongings are safe. Without the monitored smokes, who knows how long it would have gone off for.

I saw someone above put a smoke in their garage. That is usually a bad idea if you do any work out there. I recommend heat detectors. They have two types. Rate of rise and fixed temp. I use rate of rise in the house and garage and fixed in an attic. Rate of rise detects if the heat rises x amount for x amount of time. Fixed is just that, fixed to go off at a certain temp.
A few other things you can add are Co detectors, basement flood detectors, hi/low temp sensors (popular up here for property who travel during the winter...just in case furnace malfunctions, nothing worse then broken pipes from freezing water.) Also.sensors for AC units. The theft of those has been going up. Someone stole the coils out of the outdoor portion of a bakery freezer unit. The burg got away with probably $100 in copper while the bakery lost $10k in food and ingredients and had to fix the unit for another $1k.

 

[Grumpy]

Grumpy, here is a tool that will help you in your decision as to what you need to see from that distance. This will help you pick a lens.
Compare the Field of View for Various CCTV Lenses

Megapixel cameras will let you see more detail upon zoom. The higher the megapixel rating the more you will be able to zoom without pixelation. Obviously the higher the megapixel the greater the price. Then you need to figure out how much storage you need, a week, a month? Then there is the recorder itself, DVR, HD DVR, NVR. If you need to save HD quality evidence you need to record at a minimum of 10 fps ( what you see on TV is 30 fps ), the higher the megapixel rating on the camera the lower you can record due to getting much higher resolution to be able to ID someone from the video. Add all of the fps together from all of the cameras and this is the minimum that the DVR needs to be able to record. Clear as mud now huh.

Bryan

Thanks.. gives me something to read !!!

 

[KevinB]

This is a lynx 5000 unit I am installing right now. 2 story house and finished basement. No one would want to pay my labor to hardwire this lol. Anyways, this is wireless system and will be using a GSM unit. Customer has no land line. If someone grabs this off the wall, it will send an alarm, If these are installed correctly. If you look at where my pen is pointing, if a screw is used to fasten this to the wall and it is pulled off the wall, it sets off a tamper switch on the main board. The GSM unit instantly sends signal and the monitoring company is notified.