Security Articles

Physical Security Bars Keep You Safe

When many people think of home security, they think of alarm systems and security cameras. This makes sense as these tools are excellent ways to protect your property. However, combining these tools with physical security tools (such as window bars) will give you even better protection and will likely prevent burglars from entering your premises in the first place.
There are a number of reasons for this.

One is that physical security bars are a strong visual deterrent. Criminals see a property that has bars installed and they often consider moving on to a different location. It simply isn’t worth it to them to try and break into a property that has this level of security. Criminals take the path of least resistance.

Why Physical Security Bars are Effective

The effectiveness of security bars is a key reason that they are such a good choice. While alarm systems and security cameras are very effective at catching criminals in the act and identifying them so that they will be held responsible for their crimes, security bars physically keep criminals out of a property. This fact makes them the perfect tool to complete a security system. If a criminal simply can’t get inside, he or she can’t steal anything from your property. Installing security bars can also save you money. When security bars are installed at a home or business premises, owners will not need to pay an insurance deductible as required following a loss due to break in. This is because window bars make it less likely that the window glass on the property is being broken. In addition, having a comprehensive security system (such as one that includes cameras, alarms and security bars) will reduce your overall insurance costs. This is because many home insurance providers offer a discount on homes that are properly secured.

Window bars are usually made with a thick grade of steel that will make the job of cutting through them very tedious and onerous. Most bars come with a white or black powder coating, allowing them to easily blend into the window. Bars are usually installed on basement or shop windows, in doors or doorways, however they can also be used to divide a room and secure internal spaces. Bars can be custom-designed to fit most openings and can be used in the form of a gate that will expand or contract in size. As you can see, there are a number of benefits to having physical security bars installed on your property. When combined with other types of security tools, they increase the overall effectiveness of the security set-up, keeping your home and your family safe.

For more information on how physical security bars can protect your property, please contact a member of our loss prevention team. At SafeTech, we understand the crucial importance of layering different types of security technology together in order to keep people safe.

Smart Home Technology Doesn’t Just Make Life Easier, it can Save Lives

When many people think of smart homes, they think of homes that allow you to control your home remotely, receive alerts when you’re away and make life easier. This is all true about smart home technology and all of these uses are benefits to installing this technology. However, the benefits don’t stop there. You can also use smart home technology to keep track of various appliances, devices and locations in your home. This means that you can use the smart home technology to check if your children are home from school, if your water heater has malfunctioned and is flooding or if your elderly relative has gotten up and opened the fridge. These features add convenience, but they can also save lives. For example, you can have sensors installed in the home of a loved one who may require additional care, such as seniors or those with medical conditions. These sensors will allow you to know if your loved one has turned the lights on in the morning or opened the fridge door to prepare breakfast. You can even install motion detectors to make sure they’re moving around the house when they should be. If you see that they are not following their regular schedule, you can investigate more thoroughly. Receiving an alert that lets you know something could be wrong with a loved one could save a life.

Other Smart Home Technology Benefits

This also applies to children. You can receive an alert to let you know that your child has arrived home from school and even access your security cameras to make sure that they’re home safe and sound.

Another way that smart home technology can save lives is by alerting you to potentially dangerous activity. For example, smart home sensors can be installed to alert you when someone enters your driveway. These alerts could prevent a potentially serious crime such as a home invasion. Smart home technology can be integrated with your security system to provide even greater benefit. You can receive an alert when carbon monoxide is detected in your home, allowing you to react no matter where you are. Carbon monoxide can be deadly and is almost impossible for humans to detect. An early warning of the presence of this gas could save your life and the lives of your loved ones.

As you can see, in addition to providing greater convenience, smart home technology can also save lives. For more information on these security tools, please contact us today.

A Smart Thermostat that Adjusts Itself!

Smart homes are more than just alarm systems. When you have smart home technology installed in your home, you have the ability to get complete control over your home from anywhere. But that isn’t all! Now your Alarm.com powered system has the ability to make intelligent predictions about your schedule and adjust your thermostat to match your activity by using smart thermostat technology.

This not only makes your home more comfortable without having to manually adjust your thermostat, but it also helps you save energy by automatically reducing heat or air conditioning usage when you’re not at home.

A smart thermostat adjusts by using information from your Alarm.com powered system (such as alarm arming state and motion sensor activity) to make predictions as to when you will be at home or away during the week. For example, if you arm your alarm system at 8am and disarm it at 6pm every weekday, the system will learn that you are away from home during those hours and make automatic intelligent adjustments. A smart thermostat also includes an “Activity Patterns” feature that provides you with graphs that display the predictions from the smart thermostats. Customers can use this feature to adjust the predictions and schedules to more closely match their actual activity.

Using the activity patterns feature of the smart thermostat is easy. The graph displays your typical routines based on your past activity. It is colour-coded to show times of day when you will likely be home, away or asleep. By selecting and dragging temperature presets, you can adjust the temperature for these specific times.

For example, if you want it to be cooler when you’re asleep, warmer when you’re at home and even cooler when you’re away from home, you can easily make these adjustments. The smart thermostat system will then adjust the temperature to match your activities with your suggested temperatures, ensuring that you’re comfortable at all times and that you receive incredible energy savings. Once this information is set, it’s set and you won’t have to do anything else to save energy and increase comfort!

For more information on smart thermostat and smart home technology, please contact us today.

Protecting your Home on Halloween: Halloween Home Security Tips

Halloween is almost here! While this is a fun time filled with tricks, treats and costumes, it’s also important to remember Halloween home security. Criminals frequently use this occasion to commit crimes. Why? Because it’s an entire night filled with costumes, darkness and lurking around homes. Criminals take advantage of these facts. So how can you protect your home at Halloween? Here are a few Halloween home security tips.

Use Lighting

Criminals like to work in the dark. That’s why lighting is so important. With all the hustle and bustle of Halloween, you want to make sure that you shine a light on potential criminals. Motion-activated lights are a good idea. They turn on when needed and stay off when there’s no one around. You can install them around your property so that you’ll know if someone is lurking near your back door.

Pay Attention

Halloween is a busy time. Between handing out candy, looking after children and enjoying yourself, it’s easy to get distracted. Criminals use this opportunity to strike. The fact that you’ll likely have many people walking around your neighbourhood and coming up to your house can also cause you to become complacent. On any other night, you’d notice someone walking up to your house and spending time there. You’d correctly be suspicious. However, on Halloween, you might not notice this person. An important Halloween home security tip is that you pay attention on Halloween and keep your eyes peeled for trouble.

Criminals Wear Masks Too

On Halloween, you’ll likely encounter a lot of people wearing masks. Many of them will be trick or treaters, but some might be criminals. Not only do criminals take advantage of the day to cause crime, but they also use Halloween to scout out the neighbourhood. Normally, you’d be wary of someone walking down your street in a mask checking out homes but, on Halloween, the behaviour becomes normal. Watch out.

Be Careful Opening your Door

You’ll likely get a lot of knocks on your door on Halloween night. While you’ll likely want to open it up for children and their parents, you don’t want to do the same for a criminal. If someone looks suspicious (such as an adult with no children present) or if it’s very late at night (most trick or treaters don’t knock on doors at 11pm, for example) keep your door shut. This is a Halloween home security tactic that will keep you safe. By following these Halloween home security tips, you can keep your home and your loved ones safe on Halloween night.

Finding a Toronto Home Alarm Installation Company

Home alarm systems are important tools in the fight against crime. Unfortunately, criminals frequently target homes and other residential properties. They spend time scouting residential locations, looking for opportunities to strike where they won’t be spotted, caught and made to pay for their crimes. In order to combat these criminals, it’s important that homeowners turn to a Toronto home alarm installation organization to protect their homes and families.

There are a number of things that you should take into consideration when looking at Toronto home alarm installation companies. One thing to keep in mind is the level of experience that the company has. Companies that have been around for a very long time and have established track records of success are much more likely to have the skills and tools necessary to keep your property safe.

You will also want to look for an organization that has received independent recognition for providing good service. This highlights the quality of the company. It’s also a good idea to read reviews about the company. If previous customers have said good things, then there is a good chance that you will have a positive experience with the company. You can find Toronto home alarm installation reviews online or you should consider speaking with friends and family that have alarms installed. These reviews can help you make this difficult decision.

It can also help to speak with a loss prevention professional from the company itself. Prepare a list of questions and call a few different companies. Compare their answers to your questions. Do the representatives sound experienced? Do they know what they are talking about? Can they answer what you’re asking of them? These are all important things to keep in mind.

How Toronto Home Alarm Installation Works

Toronto home alarm installation can often be difficult. This is because there are a variety of diverse neighbourhoods in the city that all have different crime concerns. There are also a wide assortment of different residential properties, from bungalows, to condos to townhouses to multi-level detached homes. What works in one neighbourhood and one type of property may not work as effectively in another neighbourhood at another property. Therefore it’s important that you choose a Toronto home alarm installation professional who understands the city and what it takes to keep Toronto safe.

Choosing an alarm system company is not a step that should be taken lightly. Protecting yourself and your family from criminals, break-ins, home invasions and other crimes is one of the most important things that you can do in life. When you’re looking at Toronto home alarm installation companies, keep this in mind.

Home Security Tips for Travellers: Protecting Your Home when you’re Away

When you’re on vacation, you likely put some time and effort into protecting yourself. You don’t carry too much cash on you. You leave your valuables at home. You might avoid certain neighbourhoods at night. But do you think about protecting your home when you’re away? It’s important to do so. Here are some great home security tips for travellers.

Keeping your Home Safe: Home Security Tips for Travellers

One of the most important home security tips for travellers is that you take steps to ensure that your home looks occupied. Hold your mail, cancel your newspaper delivery and arrange to have someone cut your grass or shovel your snow as needed. All of these activities are great home security tips for travellers because they make your home look occupied even if it isn’t. You’ll also want to consider placing your lights on timers, both inside and outside your home. You can even put a radio or television on a timer to simulate someone being home.

It also helps to ask a trusted friend or family member to stop by and check on your home occasionally. This person can collect any flyers that are left on your door and fix any issues that may be visible to a criminal, such as a burned out light bulb on your porch. Having someone make minor adjustments to your home, such as moving your car or adjusting your curtains or blinds can also make your home appear occupied and is one of the key home security tips for travellers.

Another one of the major home security tips for travellers to ensure peace of mind is to make sure that your alarm system is activated and working correctly. Before you go on vacation, it is a good idea to upgrade your home security system to a monitored alarm system. This will ensure that someone is always watching over your property while you are on vacation. If anything takes place while you are gone, the central monitoring station can react quickly to handle the problem, notifying you and the appropriate authorities right away.

By following these home security tips you’ll keep your home safe and be able to enjoy your vacation that much more, since you won’t be worried about the security of your home.

Child safety is mandatory. Children escaping the safety and warmth of their homes highlights the importance of a home alarm system and security technology. There is a crucial need to take steps to secure your home in whatever way possible in order to protect yourself and your family. A home alarm system is an essential part of any home security set up. Recent events highlight the importance of a home alarm with detection devices connected to it as a practical way to secure your home. Frequently when we think of home security, we think of taking action to prevent bad people from getting into a home. However, a home alarm system can also be used to keep loved ones safely inside and to alert occupants to the fact that someone has just left it. Here are some tips on child safety.

Child safety always comes first

Having a hinge lock on your door is a good step to take in order to keep your family members safe. A home alarm system can also be used to protect children.

There are several ways to secure a home so that a small child (or anyone else for that matter) cannot leave the house without being noticed. Pure strategies involve using locks or door chains, but many children are smart enough to disable these tools. Parents are frequently shocked to discover that a child was able to get around certain protection tools and these parents often find themselves struggling to stay ahead of their children in order to protect them. It is a difficult and stressful job.

One way to decrease the likelihood of someone leaving your home without being noticed is to install an alarm system that has detection sensors on vulnerable doors and windows. These sensors can trigger a siren to sound immediately when a door or window is opened. Taking these precautions will give family members a better chance of hearing someone leaving the home unexpectedly. The alarm will provide an opportunity to react and possibly track down this person before he or she can make it too far.

Unfortunately, there is no foolproof or fail-safe way to ensure thoroughly that a terrible incident will be avoided. However, there is much that can be done to ensure child safety. By taking precautions and looking at your situation through the eyes of an active and curious child, you can reduce the likelihood of an awful tragedy taking place.

Choosing Home Alarm Security System to Protect Your Property

In order to protect your home, you’ll need to make a smart decision when choosing home alarm security system. This includes alarm systems, but it also includes a variety of other security tools. The most effective home alarm security setups are those that strategically combine different types of security technology together in order to improve the overall effectiveness of the system.

For example, a home alarm is a very useful security tool. However, combining it with a home alarm security monitoring system makes the overall system much more effective at stopping crime. Monitoring ensures that, no matter where you are or what time of day it is, the staff at the central station will be alerted and able to response to a trouble condition right away. This makes your property safer.

When you are choosing home alarm security system, you will want to seriously consider connecting your system to a monitoring station. You can also connect your security cameras. Doing so lets the central station view live and prerecorded footage during a trouble condition. This gives the monitoring station the ability to view what is taking place during a crime and this information can be passed to the authorities.

Tips for Choosing Home Alarm Security System

When you are choosing home alarm security system, there are a number of factors to take into account. Each property is different, so you will need to examine your current situation and make a choice based on your unique needs.

For example, a property with many windows will require more physical security in the form of bars and gates than a property that has fewer windows. A location that has many “hidden” areas will have a greater need for lighting and security cameras than a property that is more wide open.

This point shows why choosing home alarm security system company is so important. You will want to work with a company that is knowledgeable and one that understands how to appropriately evaluate your needs and that can provide sound advice. The loss prevention experts at SafeTech Alarm Systems understand what it takes to keep properties safe. We know how to strategically combine different security technologies to create the most effective home alarm security setup possible.