In the push to get every home to be ‘smart,’ something is being lost along the way. The more devices we own, the greater the need to maintain them, charge them up and constantly check them. We can easily end up in a situation where our device owns us rather than we own our devices. Simplicity is being lost, which for anyone interested in having a peaceful, calmer life should be a cause for concern.
With home security, it’s all gone very high tech. But there are some inherent dangers and risks with that too. In this article, we explore what high-tech and low-tech options make sense when your preference is to keep things simple.
Getting a Door Chime
An elegant door chime is a great addition to your home that provides better security. Depending on which door chime is chosen, it will fit into the current décor in any home. You’ll find that most electronic devices for a smart home don’t do that particularly well with their ugly plastic home alarms that look out of place.
There are many different types of door chimes that let you know someone is at the door. Each plays a different audible sound. To use a craftmade door chime usually just requires wiring up the chime to the electricity in the house. There are mahogany designs, elegant cylindrical shaped ones, and modern chimes with LED lighting in a hand-crafted design that’s pleasing to the eye.
Adopting a Guard Dog
Another way to add some security the old-fashioned way is to get a guard dog for protection. A well-trained dog will protect the property but also its occupants too. With the right training, a dog learns to smell when an unfamiliar person has approached the home and barks to warn them away. Their accurate sense of smell – some breeds make better guard dogs than others – is an excellent early warning system that won’t stop working because a battery died or an electronic device malfunctioned suddenly!
The best guard dog breeds include the Doberman Pincher, a German Shepherd, and the Belgian Malinois. These breeds are best because they’re larger, stronger, and highly trainable to sense intruders and act aggressively to protect the home and its occupants when necessary.
Going Away? Use Lighting Controls and Mail Management
When homeowners go away, they have used simple timer controls to have a lamp turn on at a certain time and off later. It was a basic solution that was inexpensive and made it look like someone was home. These days, you can upgrade to lights that can be controlled using a mobile app which is a slight improvement and not costly to do. In this case, a little technology makes sense to give the impression that the lights are on, so someone’s home.
If you’re going away, ask the neighbor to pick up the mail for you or have the Post Office temporarily hold your mail at the local depot and arrange to collect it when you return. This way, it won’t pile up in your mailbox at the front of the property or jam your mailbox with junk mail making it obvious to a potential intruder that no one’s home.
With home security, the high-tech gadgets are not the be all and end all. They’re fallible too. Their battery can fail, or a malfunction can take them completely offline. Smart locking systems can be hacked and you need to get software updates to protect them from the latest threats. Sometimes going old school with most security measures is sensible advice along with embracing useful little technological extras that provide enhanced protection without breaking the bank.
