Home Security

[Derek Meyer]

We have 65 cameras that monitor my place of work (local building supply center). When we have an incident with a shoplifter or vandalism or such, the police come in and we export the relevant video clips to a USB thumb drive, which then then take and analyze. They have caught nearly every one of our problem customers using this footage. Our owner estimates that the camera system has paid for itself in the amount of stolen merchandise that has been recovered, and the system cost a pretty penny.

[Jeff Body]

First My opinions
Security systems are pointless, doesn't matter if your security company calls the cops, a burglar will be in and out before they will even show up.
The best you can do is
A: Don't make it easy for them. Re-enforce the frame around the door latch. You'd be surprised how easy it is to kick a door in. (I have a 1/8" metal flat stock running the full height of the door frame that the latch goes through). Make sure you have a bar keeping the sliding glass door from opening. And finally make sure you have all the windows locked.
B: Keep good insurance
C: Add cameras you maintain yourself. Burglaries are so low on cops priority list they'll just tell you to take it up with your insurance. Unless you can give them something really solid and easy for them to follow. Identifying the burglar in a clear HD video makes their job easier and more likely to have a better outcome.

My approach
I run a samsung smartthings hub. From there I have door sensors, motion sensors, camera, and more. The beauty of this system is you can automate everything. After about 6 months most people tend to start forgetting to arm the system when they leave. My system automatically arms when it senses my wife and my phones have left the house. When it sees that we've left it'll check that the front door is locked, the garage door is down, notify me all is well, and activate the wireless blink cameras that are located inside and outside the house. If we're going to be gone for the night I have a routine that'll randomly turn a few lights on and off in the house. I have a few other tricks up my sleeve but overall it's a nice system that's automated and easy.
If it all fails on me I'll just hope line "A" works and than refer to line "B" above.

[Roger Feeley]

I don't understand what security cameras provide. Say a burglar is approaching your house. First, would a camera deter him, or does he just break in anyhow? Second, if he does break in, and the camera does provide a clear picture of his face, then what? Will the police actually try to find somebody based on his photo?

one anecdote about cameras being handy.
a friend of ours was transferred for a year so he didn’t want to sell his house. He put in a bunch of Ring cameras and other security stuff. Then they had a flood and his basement was flooded so he called in one of those water damage remediation companies. While they were there my friend tuned in to see how it was going and caught the workers rifling through his stuff and talking about what they wanted and where they would sell it. While the thieves were still working, my friend took a nice clip from the video archive and sent it to the owner of the reclamation company.

he informed the owner that he is an FBI agent (he is) and that this was a courtesy call to see what the owner would do. He said that if he wasn’t satisfied, he would post the video to social media showing the thieves wearing the companies uniform with the name plastered across the back. As you can imagine, the owner fell all over himself gett the local authorities to the house. My friend provided full video and the thieves pleaded guilty.

[Lisa Starr]

I have Wisenet cameras etc. It was purchased from Soltech Security. Our system is a combo of wired and wireless. Soltech was extremely helpful with returns/changes.