Guest Post - Protecting Your Home with Smart Tech When You Travel

For the businessperson, life can be a constant race to the next challenge. That can mean a lot of travelling to close the deal. If that describes you, then you may spend more time on the road than you do at home, leaving your house vulnerable to intruders. If you don’t have family back there waiting for you and watching over things, the concern of leaving your valuables unprotected can distract you from being at your best. Unfortunately, you don’t have time for distractions when you’re trying to grow your business and that’s where smart home technology can help.

You can certainly opt for traditional home alarm systems with full monitoring if you prefer, but these can be somewhat expensive. Smart technology allows you to pick and choose the pieces in your own home security network which you can monitor yourself from anywhere in the world. You don’t have to make any monthly payments with these types of systems and you don’t have to make large upfront payments either. Let’s take a closer look at some of the things you can do to protect your home when you’re away. 

Feeling Secure With a Security System

When I was a kid my sister and I loved to play Lego –we’d spend hours at a time building castles and fantastical homes that weren’t very practical, but they sure where a lot of fun. What made Lego so much fun was that we could pick and choose which components we wanted to use allowing us to tailor our creations to whatever suited us best. The Fortress Total Security WiFi System is a lot like that Lego we spent so much time playing with as kids. It’s a home security system controlled and monitored by you and you get to pick and choose which components you include in your system.

The benefit of a system like this is that once you’ve bought and installed the components you want there are no added expenses for you. There are no monthly monitoring expenses because you do the monitoring yourself. You can include motion sensor cameras inside and out, contact sensors for your windows and doors, indoor and outdoor sirens, and even a strobe siren for outdoors that will normally send intruders packing. If you can’t afford all of the components you want upfront, you can easily add to the system down the line.

You can set the system to automatically call or text you with an alert when the alarm is triggered, allowing you to quickly call the authorities and hopefully catch the thieves in the act or at least scare them off. Essentially, you’re taking the place of an alarm monitoring service. It’s just as effective and a lot less expensive.

Home Video Door Bells and Smart Locks

If you want to keep things a little simpler, but you still want a certain level of security for your own piece of mind you may want to consider a video doorbell and smart door lock such as those available from the Ring Company. They offer both types of products and they’re designed to be used as complimentary devices. The August Video Doorbell notifies you when someone rings your bell and you can converse with them directly using the two-way camera and intercom system. The visitor won’t know whether your home or not, but in theory you could be on the other side of the world talking to them through the companion app on your smartphone.

It integrates nicely with the August Smart Lock so if the visitor is someone you know you can let them in using the app even though you aren’t home yourself. The other benefit of the smart lock for the frequent traveller is that you can allow controlled access to your home as well. This is great for allowing family remote access to take care of pets and for letting contractors in to make necessary repairs.

Smart Bulbs

One other simple way you can protect yourself while away is by using smart bulb technology that turn on the lights in your home on a set schedule. Fortress Security Store has the Smart Outlet into which you can plug in any lamp or other light. The BeOn Home Protection system is also a great choice. This system includes a set of bulbs that learns your lighting patterns and when you leave home and activate the system it will turn your lights on and off based on the previous behaviour you’ve displayed. These bulbs also have a built-in microphone that can detect sounds so if a burglar happens to ring your bell to see if you’re home the sound will trigger the system and turn on your lights making it look like someone’s turned on the light to see who’s at the door. Chances are any burglar will high tail it out of there pretty quickly.

Smart Home Peace of Mind

The systems above may not be perfect, but they can be highly effective. Most intruders are looking for easy marks – they want to get in and out without attracting attention. With the types of smart home technology we’ve discussed above, you will definitely not be an easy mark.

Author Bio

This is a guest post by Joseph Mack from smarthomeSAGE, a blog that analyzes the impact that smart home technology has on home life.