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The moment you have some stuff, you start worrying that someone is going to take it from you. Despite the fact that crime rates have fallen dramatically over the last few decades (including burglary, which is down 75% since 1993, and only accounts for about 16% of property crimes overall), it’s natural to worry that every time you leave your house, thieves will emerge from the bushes to pry open your windows and steal all your valuables.
Whether you lose sleep over the possibility of being burgled or not, there are a lot of common-sense things you can do to make a home robbery less likely. One of the first things people think of, of course, is a home security system—the idea of the police being automatically alerted to the presence of criminals in our homes is comforting.
Home security systems are kind of useful—a study once found that most professional criminals checked for alarm systems before attempting to break into a house, and 60 percent admitted they would seek a different target if they saw a home security system. So they can be an effective deterrent—but if you’re considering installing one, you should go with a free option with DIY monitoring, because that’s about all they’re good for.
The downsides
The reason home security systems typically aren’t worth paying for is that they struggle to perform their basic task:
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False alarms. Many police departments routinely downgrade the priority of home security calls because of the ludicrous false alarm rate—estimated to be well over 90%. Since most of those alarms are wastes of time, police will attend to just about everything else before they bother showing up at your house.
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Long response times. If a burglar ignores the fact that your home has a security system and breaks in anyway, the whole point is that your system will alert the police, who will arrive quickly to secure your property. Since many police departments consider home security calls a low priority, response times can be as long as 40 minutes in some areas. That’s plenty of time for thieves to ransack your house and wander off at their leisure.
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Easy circumvention. The Los Angeles Police Department recently issued a warning that thieves were using simple wifi-blocking technology to disable home security systems that relied on wireless network connections (a similar warning was issued in Minnesota). Plus, many of these systems rely on batteries; if you fail to replace or charge them regularly, the effectiveness of the system can be compromised.
Free options
Home security systems aren’t totally useless—they’re just not worth paying a subscription fee. Simply having a system in place can be a deterrent, and being able to monitor your home when you’re not there offers peace of mind. The good news is that there are several perfectly fine DIY systems you can buy, install, and monitor yourself. While you do have to pay the initial cost of the hub, cameras, and sensors, these systems don’t require a monthly or annual monitoring fee:
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Abode. The free Abode system allows you to view video feeds and receive alerts on your phone. Although the hub has to be connected directly to your router via ethernet cable, which can be a pain, it’s one of the easiest systems to set up.
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SimpliSafe. Although SimpliSafe offers subscription monitoring, you don’t have to buy it, and their system allows you to arm or disarm the system, view video feeds, and receive alerts via their app. It’s pretty basic, but it will do what you need it to and act as a deterrent.
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Blue by ADT. Although ADT is best known for its fully monitored system, you can buy its basic Blue by ADT kit and self-monitor very effectively. This system can be a little wonky to set up, but once you get through the process it works as advertised. This isn’t the cheapest self-monitoring option out there, though, so unless you’re looking for the ADT brand you might be better off with one of the alternatives.
