10 ms·

I sold security systems in 2008, door to door. (Icky, I know.) I had a long time to think about it, every day, and during pitches. I soon stopped, because I

I sold security systems in 2008, door to door. (Icky, I know.) I had a long time to think about it, every day, and during pitches. I soon stopped, because I think they aren't worth it (which made me the world's worst salesperson. I remember near the end talking one old woman out of it.) The first important thing is that they won't prevent the nightmare encounter where a thief enters the house when you're there. Second, police are too swamped to have ever reacted in time to catch the thief. To my knowledge, it has never, ever happened. There is a possible benefit that it may truncate the time in the house. To me this is not a big issue, I suspect most competent thieves are efficient with time. Finally, there is an unobservable deterrence effect, but that is easily obtained by faking the appearance of a system without needing to enter a contract and pay monitoring fees. The most useless thing about security systems, the monitoring, is the only thing that costs serious money. The final benefit is life-alert style stuff, but there are better solutions for that. On the other hand, there is a massive placebo effect, a sense of safety that the monitoring provides. I suppose that is what people pay for.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
heywire 9y ago
All good points, and I appreciate your perspective, thank you for replying. For me, I think the greatest benefit is what you mentioned about cutting short the time the intruder has in the home. If I am in a deep sleep, and someone breaks into my home, I would at least like to be awoken with enough time to arm myself (of course hoping that the siren was enough to scare off the intruder). If I'm not home, hopefully this might deter the intruder from getting far enough into the home to get at our valuables. This benefit can also be achieved with a couple dollars worth of the manual door sirens they sell at the hardware store, so I definitely see your point there about the monitoring fees and contracts.
- cmdrfred 9y ago
  I have the same view as you and my security system is a dog and a pump action shotgun.
  - heywire 9y ago
    If only I weren't allergic to dogs :(
    - feld 9y ago
      Giant Schnauzers are hypo-allergenic and are increasingly being trained as guard dogs
  - imhoguy 9y ago
    Buy snake
    - daveguy 9y ago
      They don't bark loud enough.
      - dom0 9y ago
        Just buy some geese. No one sneaks by geese.
        hyperion2010 9y ago
        Or at least not Gauls.
tbcj 9y ago
I think this glosses over one benefit of monitoring: someone should be coming in the event an alert condition is triggered. For example, if I was shot during an armed burglary, it is more likely that someone would be coming to my aid because of my alarm system than without it. I personally don't feel more safe because of my alarm system. But, I do feel more hopeful that if my (or my spouse's or children's) safety is endangered, that someone will be coming that can increase the likelihood that we will survive that danger.
- xeromal 9y ago
  My family had ADT years ago and when we'd be on vacation and something triggered the alart it would take the police an hour or so to show up. This was in a small town too where they had nothing to do. If you're bleeding out, I doubt you'd just lay there for an hour.
AndrewKemendo 9y ago
What do you think about the benefits of just home monitoring/video recording? I agree with you totally that a security system isn't going to deter or prevent anything. It's also not going to help get police to your house faster - that's basically impossible and active-monitoring tied into some BS ADP tactical ops center (who basically just call the cops for you) is basically worthless. So my thought was to just have a really good recording system so that in the aftermath of whatever happens, you can give really good info to the police or your own PI to follow a lead. Basically the same thing that corner stores without security people do.
- heywire 9y ago
  > So my thought was to just have a really good recording system so that in the aftermath of whatever happens, you can give really good info to the police... I think along these same lines, so I have a combination of some raspberri pi's running a customized version of RPi-Cam-Web-Interface [1], and a ring.com video doorbell. [1] http://elinux.org/RPi-Cam-Web-Interface http://elinux.org/RPi-Cam-Web-Interface
  - Klathmon 9y ago
    Speaking of the Ring, if you or anyone else that is reading this has experience with both Python and the SIP protocol, we would love your help with a python project that is trying to get a real-time video stream out of the Ring device without using their App. https://github.com/tchellomello/python-ring-doorbell/issues/23 https://github.com/tchellomello/python-ring-doorbell/issues/...
    - heywire 9y ago
      I've been watching this project/issue with interest :) It is on my long todo list to dig into this. One of my worries is that even with a hardwired device, the doorbell transformer may not give enough juice for continuous video use. I notice that just after a few minutes of watching the live feed the health status reports 96% battery (down from 100%). Hopefully that isn't the case, and someone is able to find a way to pull the video feed without funneling it through ring.com's infrastructure (I'm sure they wouldn't appreciate a 24x7 video feed running through their systems :))
EGreg 9y ago
I have a question. I would LOVE to have a security system that automatically locks doors inside the house and fills the room with a thick fog. There are fog machines that work faster than the ones in the club. Hard to find a way out of the room in that case. And hard to find and assault anyone, or steal things, with a thick fog. Humane - can't get sued for leaving lasting damage - and also As a fallback, I'd remoty enable use of really unpleasant sound or pepper spray on the perp. If I lived in a rural area, I would also want a drone to take off half a mile away and film people coming to my house. That way I'd know who's coming and have a record of it even if they thought they destroyed all the surveillance video. Thoughts? I believe these kinds of things would be far better for security than what's currently on the market.
- heywire 9y ago
  I bet the folks at /r/homeautomation could work up something for this :)
- dom0 9y ago
  I believe there is a British(?) system that works like this: A sound wavefront generating bar + stroboscope mounted above the door(s) plus fog dispensed from some chemical container.
  - heywire 9y ago
    I'd hate to be the first family member to accidentally set off that system
    - EGreg 9y ago
      Maybe you'd love it :)
- gm-conspiracy 9y ago
  Now you're talkin'. True security theatre. I would also add a laser that slowly scans the room, combined with the voice from the first Resident Evil movie. Would you get sued for him tripping over your coffee table because of the fog or my lasers? In a rural area, they would just shoot the drone (I still really like your idea). You could blanket the area with inexpensive trail cams.
ad_hominem 9y ago
The only reason I'd want a home security system is to wake me up if I'm sleeping so that I can grab my gun. Video cameras would be nice for checking in on the house when away, and for post-mortem purposes if there is a break-in. But I tend to worry about the security vulnerabilities and/or backdoors in the cameras sold for these purposes (particularly the cheap Chinese ones). It's not worth it if randos are spying on you in your own home.
- heywire 9y ago
  > But I tend to worry about the security vulnerabilities and/or backdoors in the cameras sold for these purposes This is precisely why I try to use Raspberry Pi's for stuff like this. Even then, I do put the devices on a separate guest wifi network that is firewalled off from the rest of my network. It doesn't keep them from being used for DDoS or as a jump point for attackers, but at least it (hopefully) keeps them out of my local network.
  - aftbit 9y ago
    I've been meaning to put together a guest network that was only allowed to connect to a single VM / LXC container on my home server. Then I could set up a bunch of those cheap Chinese cameras and ensure that nobody was accessing them remotely while still enjoying internet-accessible video.
  - ad_hominem 9y ago
    That does sound interesting, would you mind sharing what camera hardware you use? I didn't mention it in my other comment but about 6 months ago I did set up a "YI" brand dome camera[1] for my mother-in-law. It comes with a slick little iPhone/Android app for controlling it, and the setup process / onboarding the device onto her WiFi network was very smooth. So anyway I was demoing their mobile app to her, and I was going to show her how you'd have to be on her WiFi network with the admin password to be able to access the video stream / device. So I disabled the WiFi on her phone to demo that. My jaw about hit the floor when the video stream was still working over her cellular modem (in other words the video was streaming over the Internet by default)! Note this was fresh out of the box, she didn't sign up for YI's cloud platform option or anything like that. So yeah I would be very heavy on iptables rules if I were you. [1]: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CW4BN5M https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CW4BN5M
willvarfar 9y ago
When I lived in a city flat I used to have a sinking feeling every time i came home as I got to the top of the stairs and expected to see the door ajar. Silly I know. Our car was broken into twice, because in those days stealing car stereos was a thing. Anyway, when we got a house we also brought a diy alarm connected to the land line. It was liberating to know you weren't going to come home to any nasty surprises. I looked into how they work and wasn't impressed. Easy to jam etc. So one day I may make my own wired one as a hobby project, just because I'm the kind of person who hangs out on HN and thinks that's cool :)
dahdum 9y ago
"Second, police are too swamped to have ever reacted in time to catch the thief. To my knowledge, it has never, ever happened." Anecdotally, I've seen Mountain View PD show up with 3 vehicles on a commercial false alarm in less than 3 minutes, and Sunnyvale PD show up in 1 minute to catch a shoplifter around Sprouts. I think it depends a lot on where you live.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

heywire 9y ago

All good points, and I appreciate your perspective, thank you for replying. For me, I think the greatest benefit is what you mentioned about cutting short the time the intruder has in the home. If I am in a deep sleep, and someone breaks into my home, I would at least like to be awoken with enough time to arm myself (of course hoping that the siren was enough to scare off the intruder). If I'm not home, hopefully this might deter the intruder from getting far enough into the home to get at our valuables. This benefit can also be achieved with a couple dollars worth of the manual door sirens they sell at the hardware store, so I definitely see your point there about the monitoring fees and contracts.

cmdrfred 9y ago
I have the same view as you and my security system is a dog and a pump action shotgun.
- heywire 9y ago
  If only I weren't allergic to dogs :(
  - feld 9y ago
    Giant Schnauzers are hypo-allergenic and are increasingly being trained as guard dogs
- imhoguy 9y ago
  Buy snake
  - daveguy 9y ago
    They don't bark loud enough.
    - dom0 9y ago
      Just buy some geese. No one sneaks by geese.
      - hyperion2010 9y ago
        Or at least not Gauls.

tbcj 9y ago

I think this glosses over one benefit of monitoring: someone should be coming in the event an alert condition is triggered. For example, if I was shot during an armed burglary, it is more likely that someone would be coming to my aid because of my alarm system than without it. I personally don't feel more safe because of my alarm system. But, I do feel more hopeful that if my (or my spouse's or children's) safety is endangered, that someone will be coming that can increase the likelihood that we will survive that danger.

xeromal 9y ago
My family had ADT years ago and when we'd be on vacation and something triggered the alart it would take the police an hour or so to show up. This was in a small town too where they had nothing to do. If you're bleeding out, I doubt you'd just lay there for an hour.

AndrewKemendo 9y ago

What do you think about the benefits of just home monitoring/video recording? I agree with you totally that a security system isn't going to deter or prevent anything. It's also not going to help get police to your house faster - that's basically impossible and active-monitoring tied into some BS ADP tactical ops center (who basically just call the cops for you) is basically worthless. So my thought was to just have a really good recording system so that in the aftermath of whatever happens, you can give really good info to the police or your own PI to follow a lead. Basically the same thing that corner stores without security people do.

heywire 9y ago
> So my thought was to just have a really good recording system so that in the aftermath of whatever happens, you can give really good info to the police... I think along these same lines, so I have a combination of some raspberri pi's running a customized version of RPi-Cam-Web-Interface [1], and a ring.com video doorbell. [1] http://elinux.org/RPi-Cam-Web-Interface http://elinux.org/RPi-Cam-Web-Interface
- Klathmon 9y ago
  Speaking of the Ring, if you or anyone else that is reading this has experience with both Python and the SIP protocol, we would love your help with a python project that is trying to get a real-time video stream out of the Ring device without using their App. https://github.com/tchellomello/python-ring-doorbell/issues/23 https://github.com/tchellomello/python-ring-doorbell/issues/...
  - heywire 9y ago
    I've been watching this project/issue with interest :) It is on my long todo list to dig into this. One of my worries is that even with a hardwired device, the doorbell transformer may not give enough juice for continuous video use. I notice that just after a few minutes of watching the live feed the health status reports 96% battery (down from 100%). Hopefully that isn't the case, and someone is able to find a way to pull the video feed without funneling it through ring.com's infrastructure (I'm sure they wouldn't appreciate a 24x7 video feed running through their systems :))

EGreg 9y ago

I have a question. I would LOVE to have a security system that automatically locks doors inside the house and fills the room with a thick fog. There are fog machines that work faster than the ones in the club. Hard to find a way out of the room in that case. And hard to find and assault anyone, or steal things, with a thick fog. Humane - can't get sued for leaving lasting damage - and also As a fallback, I'd remoty enable use of really unpleasant sound or pepper spray on the perp. If I lived in a rural area, I would also want a drone to take off half a mile away and film people coming to my house. That way I'd know who's coming and have a record of it even if they thought they destroyed all the surveillance video. Thoughts? I believe these kinds of things would be far better for security than what's currently on the market.

heywire 9y ago
I bet the folks at /r/homeautomation could work up something for this :)
dom0 9y ago
I believe there is a British(?) system that works like this: A sound wavefront generating bar + stroboscope mounted above the door(s) plus fog dispensed from some chemical container.
- heywire 9y ago
  I'd hate to be the first family member to accidentally set off that system
  - EGreg 9y ago
    Maybe you'd love it :)
gm-conspiracy 9y ago
Now you're talkin'. True security theatre. I would also add a laser that slowly scans the room, combined with the voice from the first Resident Evil movie. Would you get sued for him tripping over your coffee table because of the fog or my lasers? In a rural area, they would just shoot the drone (I still really like your idea). You could blanket the area with inexpensive trail cams.

ad_hominem 9y ago

The only reason I'd want a home security system is to wake me up if I'm sleeping so that I can grab my gun. Video cameras would be nice for checking in on the house when away, and for post-mortem purposes if there is a break-in. But I tend to worry about the security vulnerabilities and/or backdoors in the cameras sold for these purposes (particularly the cheap Chinese ones). It's not worth it if randos are spying on you in your own home.

heywire 9y ago
> But I tend to worry about the security vulnerabilities and/or backdoors in the cameras sold for these purposes This is precisely why I try to use Raspberry Pi's for stuff like this. Even then, I do put the devices on a separate guest wifi network that is firewalled off from the rest of my network. It doesn't keep them from being used for DDoS or as a jump point for attackers, but at least it (hopefully) keeps them out of my local network.
- aftbit 9y ago
  I've been meaning to put together a guest network that was only allowed to connect to a single VM / LXC container on my home server. Then I could set up a bunch of those cheap Chinese cameras and ensure that nobody was accessing them remotely while still enjoying internet-accessible video.
- ad_hominem 9y ago
  That does sound interesting, would you mind sharing what camera hardware you use? I didn't mention it in my other comment but about 6 months ago I did set up a "YI" brand dome camera[1] for my mother-in-law. It comes with a slick little iPhone/Android app for controlling it, and the setup process / onboarding the device onto her WiFi network was very smooth. So anyway I was demoing their mobile app to her, and I was going to show her how you'd have to be on her WiFi network with the admin password to be able to access the video stream / device. So I disabled the WiFi on her phone to demo that. My jaw about hit the floor when the video stream was still working over her cellular modem (in other words the video was streaming over the Internet by default)! Note this was fresh out of the box, she didn't sign up for YI's cloud platform option or anything like that. So yeah I would be very heavy on iptables rules if I were you. [1]: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CW4BN5M https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CW4BN5M

willvarfar 9y ago

When I lived in a city flat I used to have a sinking feeling every time i came home as I got to the top of the stairs and expected to see the door ajar. Silly I know. Our car was broken into twice, because in those days stealing car stereos was a thing. Anyway, when we got a house we also brought a diy alarm connected to the land line. It was liberating to know you weren't going to come home to any nasty surprises. I looked into how they work and wasn't impressed. Easy to jam etc. So one day I may make my own wired one as a hobby project, just because I'm the kind of person who hangs out on HN and thinks that's cool :)

dahdum 9y ago

"Second, police are too swamped to have ever reacted in time to catch the thief. To my knowledge, it has never, ever happened." Anecdotally, I've seen Mountain View PD show up with 3 vehicles on a commercial false alarm in less than 3 minutes, and Sunnyvale PD show up in 1 minute to catch a shoplifter around Sprouts. I think it depends a lot on where you live.