Today’s smart homes have come a long way. They aren’t just a way to impress your friends anymore—they can help keep your home safe while you’re away, manage your home’s energy and water usage, make entertaining easier, and enhance the way you live and work in your home. In the next few blog posts, we’ll take a look at how smart home automation can enhance the lives of Orange County homeowners.
In our last two blog posts, Entertaining at Home and Living and Working at Home, we followed Orange County homeowners Gary and Pam Reynolds to discover how their smart home benefits them in their everyday lives, as well as when they host family and friends for parties and small gatherings. In this post, which is the third in our series titled “Smart Home Automation for Orange County Homeowners,” we’ll look at how Gary and Pam’s smart home system helps keep them and their home safe.
Being empty nesters that are semi-retired, Gary and Pam have a good amount of time to engage in one of their favorite hobbies—traveling! They enjoy visiting friends and family around the country, as well as exploring other parts of the world. Sometimes, they are away from their home for weeks at a time.
When the Reynolds had their smart home system installed, they knew that they wanted home security to be a major part of it. While they live in a very safe part of Orange County, they were concerned about leaving their house empty for extended periods. They didn’t want to have to ask friends or family to house sit every time they were gone, but they also wanted to be able to keep tabs on their home and be alerted if anything out of the ordinary happened on their property. They also knew that security cameras can be a deterrent to would-be criminals.
High-End Security Cameras
Like most home security systems, the Reynolds’s setup has multiple security cameras. However, these aren’t just any security cameras that record blurry or grainy footage. These are high-definition cameras that produce the equivalent of 4K-resolution videos. Using infrared technology, they can capture footage at night that will provide them with facial recognition from more than 150 feet away!
Gary and Pam had cameras positioned inside their house in strategic locations, as well as all around the outside of the home and around the perimeter of their property. When they are at home, they can view the camera footage on a monitor in Gary’s office. When they are away, they can easily call up the footage on their laptops or smartphones at any time.
Their cameras are also equipped with artificial intelligence and are able to distinguish between suspicious and normal movement around their property. This means Gary and Pam won’t receive notifications for every little movement that their cameras detect. For example, they wouldn’t be alerted if a package is delivered or if an animal enters their property. This makes the notifications they receive more useful (and less annoying).
Their outdoor cameras are weatherproof and durable. They are also inconspicuous and blend into the outdoor décor and landscaping.
Battery Backup and Local Storage
Many of Gary and Pam’s neighbors use popular home monitoring systems like Nest or Ring, which are cloud-based systems, but after doing some research, they realized that these systems have some major limitations. They opted instead for a system that is hardwired into a local network video recorder and has a battery backup. This allows their system to keep recording even if their power goes out or if their WiFi goes down. Since their system is not cloud based, it is also less vulnerable to hackers.
Their recorded footage is backed up at a secure remote location, should they ever need to call up archived video. They can gain access to the archived footage remotely for their convenience.
A More Complete, but Still Cost-Effective, Home Security System
Gary and Pam chose to have their outdoor security cameras powered by network cables, rather than electrical power cabling. Using this power over ethernet (PoE) technology, they are able to realize several advantages.
First of all, this type of setup is much more cost effective. Only one set of cables is needed, rather than two, and the network cabling can be placed anywhere (unlike electrical cables). Second, Gary and Pam can add more security cameras to their system at any time or easily reposition them. Third, their high-end cameras are protected from damage from electrical overloads.
Alarm System
No home security system would be complete without a sophisticated alarm system. Gary and Pam’s home alarm system has entry sensors, as well as glass break sensors that notify them, as well as the authorities, if someone tries to break into their home.
Their alarm system is also integrated with their home’s smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, protecting their home from fires and gas leaks while they’re away. Their home is monitored 24/7 by a home security company known for fast response times.
Biometric Access Control Systems
Gary and Pam had biometric access control systems installed near all of the points of entry into their home. This allows them to enter their home when the security system is armed simply by having their fingerprints scanned. The control panels also contain a keypad so others can enter via a six-digit code, which they regularly change.
Complete Integration with Other Smart Home Systems
Because their home security system is integrated with the rest of the systems in their Orange County smart home, Gary and Pam can take additional safety measures when they’re away from home. For example, they can raise and lower their shades like they normally would when they are home to make it look like someone is there. They can also set their lights to turn on and off in a way that mimics their at-home behavior. It’s features like this that separate an “off-the-shelf” or DIY home security system from a professionally designed and installed system.
Not every Orange County homeowner needs all of the bells and whistles when it comes to home security, but some people want every feature and all of the latest in home security technology. At Good Sounds, we can design a system that’s perfect for your lifestyle and security needs. We’ll start with an initial consultation where we can ascertain your goals for your home security system. We’ll then design a system that meets all of your needs. We use professional-grade equipment and only recommend security devices that have been heavily tested and proven to be reliable. Our team would love to help you make your home more secure in ways that make sense for your specific home and lifestyle.
Contact Good Sounds today to set up your initial consultation.
Read the previous post in this series about Orange County homeowners, Gary and Pam Reynolds: Entertaining at Home and Living and Working at Home.
