Date Night Security for Parents

With Valentine’s Day around the corner, romance is in the air and couples are planning their special night out. Of course, for parents, date nights can get complicated to arrange. This goes for both major nights out like Valentine’s Day as well as casual dinner-and-movie dates any other outings that parents plan throughout the year. Coordinating babysitters and making sure kids have everything they need at home can feel overwhelming. Above all, parents want to make sure their kids stay safe and secure while the adults are away. In this post, we share our tips for date night security for parents.

We will begin with a look at how adding monitored smoke and carbon monoxide detection can add security and peace of mind. This equipment has the ability to save your home during a fire and, more importantly, save lives. From there, we will look at how adding alarm alerts can keep you connected to your kids. Adding extra alarm sensors can also help you track activity within your home. Finally, we will examine how installing cameras can improve your home’s security. In this section, we’ll take a look at a couple camera options that can allow you to leave the house with less worry. Now, let’s dive in with a look at the benefits of monitored smoke and carbon monoxide detection.

Utilize Monitored Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Detection to Add Safety

Fires and carbon monoxide (or “CO”) poisoning are serious enough threats to make any parents worry while they are away from the home. Installing monitored detection for these threats adds an extremely important layer of security. Upon activation, your monitored smoke and carbon monoxide detectors will create a fire truck dispatch to your home. This can mean the difference between life and death if your kids are asleep during a fire or CO emergency. Additionally, activation of these devices will trigger a phone call to you. Therefore, you will be the first to know about emergencies of this nature, even on date nights or times when you are away.

As an added bonus, installing this security can even carry a financial incentive! Several months back, we created a post sharing Smart Security Tips to Save You Money. Insurance companies often offer discounts for homes that carry monitored security systems. They often carry a significantly higher discount for homes with monitored smoke and CO detection installed. Often, the discount completely offsets the cost of adding this equipment very quickly. The ability to receive this tremendous security while saving money makes installing monitored smoke and CO detection an easy decision for many homeowners. Now, let’s look at how you can add date night security through one of our most popular home security features.

Create Alarm Alerts to Add Security and Peace of Mind

The advent of interactive cellular monitoring has put homeowners in closer touch with their home’s security systems than ever. Cellular monitoring involves installing a cellular dialer in your alarm system. This dialer creates a cellular communication path between your alarm panel and our central station. Traditional alarm monitoring requires the presence of a phone line for this communication. Unfortunately, phone lines often go down or get cut by burglars proactively attempting to disable your alarm system’s monitoring. Therefore, cellular monitoring provides a more reliable form of alarm monitoring.

Additionally, our cellular dialer, powered by Alarm.com, offers interactive cellular monitoring. Interactive cellular monitoring allows you to control your alarm system with your smartphone. Furthermore, it also allows you to create customizable alerts to help you track alarm activity in your absence. For example, you can receive a text alert when someone arms or disarms your security system. If one of your kids decides to leave the home during your date night, they will not be able to do so without you knowing that the alarm system has been disarmed! Most importantly, you will receive an immediate alert upon alarm activation. This means that if your alarm picks up burglary-related activity or a dangerous fire or CO-related situation, you will know immediately. Now, let’s look at how adding sensors to your alarm and creating alerts for them can add a truly unique layer of date night security!

Add Contact Sensors to Track Activity

When we refer to “contact sensors,” we are referencing the alarm sensors that are installed on doors and windows. However, alarm customers can get very creative with where they install these sensors. We discussed some potential landing spots for this equipment in our 5 Unconventional Uses for Contact Sensors. In that post, we discussed how our customers use their Alarm.com alert settings to create alerts when someone opens doors, drawers, cabinets, or fences armed with these sensors.

For example, you can install a contact sensor on a pool gate. Then, set up an Alarm.com notification to alert you if the pool gate opens. You can even elect to receive this notification when your alarm system is disarmed! Liquor cabinets, bedroom closets, and jewelry drawers also make popular locations for contact sensors. Whether you have teenagers who search for trouble, or toddlers who wander into danger without trying to do so, installing contact sensors and creating these alerts adds both security and peace of mind when you leave the house. Now, let’s look at adding date night security by installing home surveillance.

Install Cameras to Keep an Eye on Your Home

A few months back, we created a post on Following the Latest Home Security Trends. In that post, we discussed the growing role of cameras within the security industry. Lately, advances in camera technology have made home surveillance easier to purchase, install, and use than ever before. In this section, we discuss how cameras can increase your home’s date night security. We will begin with a look at installing cameras inside your home. Having eyes in the house at all times can create both security and peace of mind. From there, we will look at the many benefits of adding doorbell cameras, another one of the security industry’s recent “rising stars.” Let’s dive in by focusing on adding cameras to monitor your home!

Interior Cameras

Adding cameras inside your home allows you to monitor your home in real time or through recorded footage. Out on a date and want to make sure the kids went to bed on time? Taking a quick peak at your home’s cameras — which we connect to your network — on your phone allows you to verify this information quickly and continue having a fun night out. If anything does happen in your absence, you can review the video after the fact and see what happened. For example, what if a vase breaks and there’s an argument about the responsible party? These types of issues can now be solved with minimal effort.

Furthermore, installing Alarm.com smart cameras can add unique date night security. We already discussed the security alerts that the Alarm.com cell dialer allows you to create. These smart cameras also provide the ability to create unique, customizable alerts. For example, maybe you expect your teenager to come home from soccer practice during your date. Setting up a notification for a live video alert will ensure that your camera sends a video clip of this happening.

Conversely, you can also receive an alert when an event does not happen. Therefore, if your teenager does not come through the front door within an hour of practice ending, you will receive a notification alerting you to the situation. This amount of flexibility and security makes Alarm.com smart cameras a very popular piece of security equipment. Now, let’s look at the unique security features provided by doorbell cameras.

Doorbell Cameras

Doorbell cameras have quickly gained “jack-of-all-trade” status for homeowners looking to boost security. For starters, these cameras allow for live video streaming, just like the security cameras we’ve already discussed. Additionally, Alarm.com offers a version of the doorbell camera that provides all of the features their smart cameras offer. This means that you can receive customizable alerts based on activity around your door. It also means that the doorbell camera creates motion-based video clips that get stored for later viewing and, if desired, saving as a file on a computer or thumb drive.

Furthermore, doorbell cameras allow you to interact with anyone who visits the home. Whether they ring the doorbell or merely stand in front of it and create a video alert, you can talk to visitors through the doorbell and have a conversation without your kids having to answer the door. Unexpected visitors are always a concern of parents leaving kids home to go out on a date. Now, you can see who comes to the door and even turn them away without anyone else having to get involved. You can even see if your kids or your babysitter has unexpected guests in your absence! This list of features makes it easy to see why so many families have installed these cameras.

Putting Together a Complete Date Night Security Plan

We hope that this post has given you some ideas for creating additional date night security. We encourage you to contact us with any questions you may have about this post. If you would like, we can offer a free site survey to evaluate your home for security measures. While on site, we can address any concerns you have and even make suggestions of our own based on what we see. Leaving kids at home can distract parents trying to spend time together away from the house. The security and peace of mind created by taking the right security measures can help. Together, we can help you keep you, your house, and your family as safe as possible.

 

Feature Photo Credit: Kelly Parker McPherson on flickr. Used under the CC BY 2.0 License.