Is your guard dog just a puppy?

Old security systems are like puppies compared to integrated home security solutions.

Recently, while my family and I slept, a group of thieves attempted to break into our house to steal our car. It’s a common theme across Melbourne at present. We didn’t know anything had happened until the next afternoon when we realised the car had been interfered with. The security cameras captured the activity, and we were able to provide that to the police.

The most alarming thing for me was that the thieves knew there were security cameras, and even looked directly at them. So clearly, having cameras, a security alarm or being home is no longer sufficient to deter thieves. Furthermore, the stakes are higher with thieves now happy to enter our homes while we sleep. Recently a man was stabbed to death in a burglary in a nearby suburb.

"Having cameras, a security alarm or being home is no longer sufficient to deter thieves."

When I put together my own smart home a few years ago a colleague, who also runs a smart home business, advised that it wasn’t really necessary to integrate security cameras into the whole smart home ecosystem. He said that it’s best to keep it as a separate solution due to the technical challenges in processing the video and the limited benefit of linking the video data with other house data.

Recent advances in AI, and video processing software, the enthusiasm of my awesome business partner (Nick) and my own security scare have convinced me to bring forward the upgrade to my own system and produce a set of fully integrated solutions for our clients.

With all this said, we recently invested in our home security offering, which now out-performs off-the-shelf security camera and alarm systems. As a fully integrated home security solution we can now:

• Automatically arm doors and windows at night, when you’re asleep, resulting in an audible alarm if these are opened. Automatic disarming in the morning.

• Notify with a picture message to your phone when people (not dogs, birds or spiders) enter certain areas of your property.

• Enable arming of your system automatically when no-one is home; disarm when you arrive home. No keypad required.

• Phone (Apple CarPlay) based garage/gate activation – no key fob in the car.

• Activate external lights based on people being in certain areas of your property.

• Warning for doors or windows left open (and even unlocked) when you're leaving home.

• Warning if you've left your car unlocked (depending on vehicle brand and age).

• Provide 2-way video doorbell

More brazen criminals have rendered the old home security products obsolete. So, to keep ourselves and our families safe now, we need a mature guard dog by our side; one that is fully integrated into the smart home and one that is proactive; or in the worst case, that reacts to unusual activity as it is happening.