By Rod Easdown
It was 11pm and I got a text message saying my home security system was screaming. Had I agreed to pay a security company to monitor the alarm, it would have sent a guy around to check and he would have got back to me. But my experience is that this can take anywhere up to six hours and I had figured if the alarm called me and not them I’d react with more motivation. And it wouldn’t cost me a cent.
In this case there was a problem. I was in Singapore.
I managed to get a family member around there the next morning and was told it was a false alarm. All that stress for nothing.
Wouldn’t it be nice if there was some way you could remotely check if an alarm activation is just another wrong’un? Turns out there is. Just not quite yet.
Belkin unveiled the idea at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and says it will be on the market in Australia in the second half of this year. It’s an addition to the brand’s WeMo range – products aimed at creating a house controlled entirely by a phone. WeMo started with lighting, now there’s security.
It operates through your home Wi-Fi and you start with an alarm sensor. It looks like a smoke detector and is mounted near the little doover on the ceiling that creates all the noise when the alarm goes off. Depending on your security guy, this is variously called a shrieker, a squawker, a siren or, as some more delicate security companies describe it, a sounder.
The alarm sensor activates when it “hears” the shrieker, sending a message to your phone. Your alarm system might already do this; if not, the WeMo system saves you the expense of hooking the alarm into the phone line.
Here’s the clever bit. WeMo security includes sensors for your doors and windows, so if you’re advised the alarm has activated it’s simple to check if any doors or windows have been breached. If not, false alarm. Unless the guy has come in through the roof, in which case he’ll trip a motion detector or the door sensor when he leaves.
Here’s the interesting bit. The system also includes key fobs. These track whoever has them, so you know where the kids are. Or – if you put one on its collar – where the dog gets to. But the best idea is that it will also tell you where you left your keys. All you have to do is find your phone.
The system includes pet-friendly motion detectors. Although prices have not been advised, the folk at Belkin predict you’ll be able to set up a house with three key fobs, a dozen door and window detectors and an alarm sensor for less than $1000.
