Home Security Systems Blog

If you are a fan of Westerns, the name Brinks will not be unfamiliar to you; this home security company has furnished security services to big business (primarily banks, governments and jewelers) for 160 years. It is a relative newcomer to the home security, and in fact the corporation’s Home Security division was recently spun off and separated from the parent company and is now its own independent publicly traded entity.

Brink’s Home Security Division was formed in 1983 with corporate offices in Irving, Texas and support services based in Knoxville, Tennessee. Currently, the company provides services to 1.3 million homes in North America. Services provided include burglar/intruder alerts, smoke and fire detection and carbon monoxide monitoring; system installation starts at under $50, making it a relative bargain; the company’s top-of-the-line home security system is currently priced at $155.

There are few customer complaints about Brink’s services, and most of these are directed not at the company itself but rather locally based dealers. Unlike many home security companies, Brink’s Home Security uses its own local dealerships, all of whom are employees of - and thus accountable to - the main office in Texas. These dealers have been screened and their personnel trained by Brinks. Most local authorized dealers are conscientious and dedicated to providing the best possible service, but as with any large organization, there are invariably a few “bad apples.”  One Brinks employee recommends that prospective customers “research the local dealer to make sure they are behaving with professionalism and excellence.” If there are concerns, customers should contact the Brinks head office and inquire about the authorized dealer before committing to the purchase of a home security system.

According to independent sources, all Brinks monitoring centers are certified by Underwriter’s Laboratories and has been recognized for excellence in customer service by JD Power and Associates for the past five years.

Motion detectors are an important part of any well-designed business or home security system. The best home security systems use a variety of techniques and technologies to detect an unwanted intruder, and motion detection is an additional layer of security that greatly enhances the efficacy of any home security system, without greatly increasing its price.

Although the technology is constantly advancing, and there are any number of niche solutions that rely on a variety of underlying theoretical models, motion detectors can be broadly grouped into three different classifications:

Passive Infrared motion detectors work by detecting the heat of a human body. This a highly effective detection system but it can generate false positives, whether from a pet, sunshine streaming in on a particularly hot day, a space heater activating when its thermostat drops below a certain point, and so on. However, passive infrared systems can be tuned to avoid false positives by requiring a certain magnitude of heat change before the alarm is triggered. For example, a sensor can be tuned to not go off when a pet enters the room, by excluding heat signatures below a certain size.

Ultrasonic motion detectors work by bouncing ultrasonic waves around a room or space, and detecting changes in the contents of the space by changes in the reflected waves that return to the sensor. This type of sensor is difficult to defeat, but is also difficult to program to ignore pet entry into a home area, making it better suited for areas where there is no legitimate traffic which the system must ignore.

Microwave motion detectors bounce microwaves around the area, much like the radar guns used by the traffic police. Like ultrasonic systems, they are effective and hard to defeat, but also hard to customize.

Image recognition motion detectors work by assigning a computer to continually process the input from a digital video camera. The computer algorithm constantly scans the pixels of the transmitted image, and triggers an alert when enough pixels change in value, indicating an intruder or major change to the monitored space. This is a high-end solution.

Laser motion detectors send a laser beam (or a photoelectric light beam) across an area and detect interruptions to the beam from a sensor located across the space from the beam source. These forms of detectors are somewhat out of date, because they are relatively easy to evade if an intruder knows of their presence.

A motion detector can be wired into the business or home security system and programmed to perform a wide range of tasks in response to an intrusion. The system can call a designated phone number with an alert message, send a signal to a monitoring office (which can then dispatch an investigative team), turn on a light, sound an audible or silent alarm in your home security system.

Once you’ve got a Home Security System installed, it is likely that you want someone to monitor the home alarm for you remotely. Remote home alarm monitoring is a process that can get complicated in the details, but the basic idea is straightforward: a Home Security Company monitors the signals sent out by your Home Alarm System, and either calls emergency services or sends out their own private security team if the alarm is triggered. Home Security Companies can also provide a wide range of additional Home Alarm Monitoring services on top of this basic service. Home Security Companies that sell home alarm systems and also provide a home alarm monitoring service and can offer a discount on the combined service.

Choosing a Home Security Company to monitor your home alarm system is a balance of costs and benefits. There are deals to be found, but for the most part, the more you pay, the more service there is. There are Home Security Companies that have rates as low as $9 a month, for an extremely basic level of service (basically, they will call 911 for you if the alarm is triggered). Companies with packages in the $20 to $40 a month range tend to provide additional services, like professional installers who come out and get your system in sync with their residential alarm monitoring service, offer multiple alert levels for your home alarm system. For example, your service can be set up so that a window sensor being burglarized only triggers an alert e-mail that is sent to your personal address. No emergency services are alerted and no help will be coming.

Having your home alarm system monitored is definitely a good investment. Most home insurance policies offer discounts for as much as 20% if you have a quality home security system with professional installation and home alarm monitoring. Be sure to inquire with your home insurance agent before selecting a provider, to make sure that the home security system and home alarm monitoring service you are buying are going to work for your insurance company. Reputable Home Security Companies will be glad to help you with that process.

In addition to the financial benefit, a home alarm monitoring service represents a definite upgrade in the security level of your home. A home alarm system by itself is helpful but it still leaves you up against burglars or who-knows-what once the alarm has gone off. The peace of mind in knowing that an effective and rapid response is just a signal away is very reassuring and very comforting for you and your family. The cost is moderate and the security benefit very high; it is definitely a worthwhile idea.

Home Security Systems can secure your home and family as well as your home office. Ask the operator of a home business what they worry about, and the odds are good they’ll tell you it’s making it to the next payday, finding new clients, or just keeping the kids from driving them crazy during the workday. What these small, scrappy entrepreneurs have forgotten is that their home business needs security, just like a business operating in a more commercial setting. Imagine what would happen if a burglar took the computer you keep all your client information on, or took the file cabinet containing your tax receipts and forms - on April 14. Even the loss of a relatively minor item like a printer or fax machine can throw a wrench into a business that could take weeks or months to recover from. Home Security Systems with 24/7 monitoring are an economical way to secure you home office.

The first step in securing a home office is to get control of the perimeter. If you do not have a home security system in place, then definitely consider adding one, with special emphasis on the part of your home dedicated to your business. Depending on your needs, it might be possible to alarm and secure only the business part of the home, but that often isn’t practical. Security begins with the physical - check the doors and windows of your home office to ensure that they are heavy duty and up to the task of preventing intrusion. Hollow-core bedroom doors are no obstacles to anyone serious about breaking and entering. If your office is on the ground floor or basement, it’s worth investing in a high-quality window lock and/or a barred security system. Home alarms and home alarm monitoring are also a worthwhile investment. Don’t forget smoke alarms and, depending on your budget, fire suppression systems - a fire can wipe you out just as easily as a burglar can. Check your electrical systems to ensure you aren’t putting an excessive load on electrical circuits meant for a lamp or a TV, but which are instead supporting two color lasers and four PCs.

Once the physical environment is taken care of, make your home business more robust and trouble-proof. Ensure that all of your critical electronic files and documents are backed up to a secure off-site location. Web sites that will maintain your file libraries remotely have excellent unattended backup software; this investment of a few dollars a month could literally save your business after a disaster. Remember that a backup system that isn’t used is no better than no backup system at all - automate your backups, and periodically check to see that your backups are actually being written to the remote location. Store copies of paper files in an off-site location - you can do this cheaply by boxing up copies of your critical paper documents once a month and swapping storage space with another home business owner in the same state. (Don’t use someone in the same town or even worse, neighborhood - you don’t want one natural disaster to take out both offices.)

Have a backup plan for disaster, whether a burglary, a fire, or a flood. This can be as simple as having an emergency credit card and a standing reservation at a neighborhood office building that offers temporary rentals, or can be a complete and sophisticated emergency recovery plan. Remember that failing to plan is planning to fail!