[thomasjsn]

Thank you :) Calling the police would be ideal, but then you have to involve an alarm company and use their system. They are expensive, and I wanted to build something myself.

1. Hm, maybe. If they were to arrive, they would have to call me — I could remotely disarm the system or give them the code.

2. Not sure, my closest neighbors are aware of the alarm system. No false alarms in 13 months I've been using the system.

3. I used to work as an alarm technician; you can't really prevent the pros breaking in, getting what they came for and getting out. But you can prevent someone spending a long time inside the house looking for things to steal.

[mastermedo]

> No false alarms in 13 months I've been using the system.

That’s great. How often do you test it?

> I used to work as an alarm technician

Ok, that explains a lot.

> you can't really prevent the pros breaking in, getting what they came for and getting out. But you can prevent someone spending a long time inside the house looking for things to steal.

That’s the main use-case for such an alarm then.

[thomasjsn]

> That’s great. How often do you test it?

Most sensors gets used on a daily basis — as they are part of other home automation, like motion activated lighting. I can put the system in "walk test" mode, which gives a verification sound every time a sensor is activated. And there is a siren test function. I try to do those about once a month.

> That’s the main use-case for such an alarm then.

I'd say so. As I said; we have good neighbors that would react to the alarm, and I get notified on my phone. But the pros are normally gone before anyone has time to react anyways :)

[implements]

Yeah, I’ve set mine up to do the three necessary things: deter ‘casual’ burglars (so there’s an obvious commercial grade sounder clearly visible from the street), text the family if the alarm goes off (so we know somethings happened and can get back home), and record internal CCTV during an activation (so the Police have something to go on).

We chose a ‘dumb’ old school wired alarm because they run reliably for years with just battery changes and dust blow-outs, and linked it to a network dome camera to handle the ‘smarts’.