With Thanksgiving and Black Friday fast approaching, we’ve officially found ourselves in the midst of holiday shopping season. This season brings with it the joys of time spent with family, great food, and the promise of gift exchanges over the Christmas holiday. The time in between now and then, however, creates unique security threats, especially as more and more holiday shopping gets done online. The possibility of “porch pirates” taking off with gifts meant for loved ones grows exponentially as thieves keep their eyes peeled for unclaimed deliveries as they scope out the neighborhood. Fortunately, we offer a variety of security solutions to combat this danger. In today’s post, we share some valuable security measures for holiday shopping season!
First, we’ll share some basic equipment that can alert you to the deliveries at your home. This can help you keep boxes from staying on your porch for longer stretches than necessary. From there, we’ll shift our attention to keeping an “eye” on your entrances. Specifically, we’ll look at a couple types of smart cameras to help cover these important areas of your home. Finally, we’ll show you the power of smart keypad locks. These unique locks allow for remote locking and unlocking, as well as the ability to create alerts when someone uses them, to control and track access to your home at all times. This greatly helps with security during holiday shopping season! Now, let’s dive in with a look at adding easy driveway security to your home.
Installing Equipment to Alert You to Driveway Traffic
A while back, we created a post sharing Yard and Driveway Security Tips. In that post, we discussed the importance of installing equipment to track driveway activity. Motion-based equipment, such as the Optex system pictured, can alert you to delivery trucks arriving at your house or approaching your mailbox. This can help you grab your mail as soon as possible after receiving it, thwarting even the quickest of package thieves. Additionally, this type of security can alert you to people approaching your home as well. This allows you to investigate the situation and potentially catch someone approaching your porch or mailbox with less-than-perfect intentions. Let’s look at an even more advanced way to track activity outside of your home!
Alarm.com cameras can watch the exterior of your home at all times, and can even send live video clips upon detecting motion.
Keeping an Eye on Your Entrances
Following the steps above can greatly reduce the risk of falling victim to package theft over the holidays. Of course, we also recommend taking additional steps in case an incident does occur. After all, packages come from many different sources, and errors on your part or that of a delivery worker can lead to a gift falling at your door for the taking. In this section, we’ll look at a couple camera options to help you combat this security threat. First up, we’ll look at the unique security benefits of smart cameras. From there, we’ll also examine the many uses of doorbell cameras!
Smart Cameras for Exterior Monitoring
We’ve long recommended installing cameras to provide video monitoring of your property’s exterior. Recently, the addition of smart home cameras to the home security market has made adding this security easier than ever. Unlike traditional surveillance, which requires running wiring from a recorder to every single camera location, smart cameras communicate with your network wirelessly. This makes installation easy and relatively inexpensive. Furthermore, it makes it possible to install cameras in locations inaccessible to running wires. In fact, many homes prove difficult or impossible to effectively wire for traditional surveillance. Therefore, smart cameras provide the perfect solution to this issue.
Moreover, smart cameras also provide unique security features that their hardwired counterparts do not. For example, smart cameras can send you live video upon detecting motion. This allows you to track activity in and around your home in real time. Furthermore, smart cameras save video to a cloud service, such as our preferred smart camera service powered by Alarm.com. In turn, this lets you save and share clips that may catch suspicious activity around your home during this time of year. For more information, check out our post sharing Unique Alarm.com Smart Camera Features. Now, let’s see how you can add even more specialized video monitoring to your home with doorbell cameras!
Doorbell Cameras for Unique Door Security
Doorbell cameras add a tremendous amount of security to any entrance where you install them. For starters, doorbell cameras record motion-based clips of anyone who approaches your door, just like the smart cameras we described above. If desired, you can have live motion-based clips sent to your phone as soon as the cameras detect motion. Your video clips remain stored in the cloud for reference in case they do capture any illegal activity. This obviously adds significant security against package thieves to your entry points.
Furthermore, audio-enabled smart doorbell cameras allow you to communicate with visitors who ring your doorbell. Activation of your smart doorbell will create a live video alert on your smartphone. This alert prompts you to then have a conversation with anyone who rings your doorbell. The added security and tremendous convenience offered by these doorbells make them an extremely popular security addition for any home. In addition, pairing these doorbells with the equipment listed in our next security tip can really pay off. Similarly to our smart camera offerings, we recommend installing Alarm.com video doorbell products. Now, let’s take a look at a security product that can interact with your smart cameras for a great 1-2 holiday shipping security punch!
Allowing Smart Locks to Add Convenience and Security
As with our doorbell cameras, our preferred smart locks are powered by Alarm.com, such as the model by Yale pictured here. The touchscreen on this smart lock allows users to unlock the door without a key. This helps with key security, as you can grant temporary access to contractors or house sitters without making a copy of your key that they may also copy for future use. Simply providing a temporary code that you delete after these individuals no longer need to access you home can solve this security issue.
Smart locks, such as this model by Yale and powered by Alarm.com, allow users to control their locks remotely and receive instant locking and unlocking alerts, adding both security and convenience.
Furthermore, these locks pair with your doorbell camera to allow you to grant quick access to your home without providing a key or a code! We mentioned earlier that smart doorbells sends an interactive video alert to your smartphone when a visitor rings your doorbell. If you have a smart lock, you can then unlock the door remotely as well. Now, when delivery drivers ring your doorbell to alert you to a package delivery, you can unlock the door and have them leave it inside for you! The ability to do this without granting permanent access to your home via a key or a code secures you against package thieves as well as unwanted return trips from individuals who possess a key or code to enter your home. These features make smart locks one of the most effective security measures for holiday shopping season.
Putting Our Security Measures for Holiday Shopping Season to Work for You
We hope that this post has allowed you to find some security measures for holiday shopping season that work for your own home this year! As always, we encourage you to contact us with any questions this post may raise for you. We will happily answer any and all of your security-related inquiries. Moreover, we also invite you to take advantage of our free site survey program. We’ve long offered complimentary security audits to both new and existing customers alike. While on site, we can come up with solutions that give you both the security and the user experience you desire. Furthermore, we’ll make additional security solutions based on observations we make during our visit.
Perhaps you have some of these security measures in place, and want to make security additions. Or, maybe you have very little in the way of security equipment now, and want to get started from the ground up. Either way, we are here to help! Over our 36-plus years in business, we’ve helped well over a thousand customers design and implement complete, whole-property security plans. Together, we can create a plan to keep your, your home, and your valuables as safe and secure as possible throughout the holiday season and beyond!