The end of August brings about several changes, which some people welcome with open arms and others dread. For example, we’re starting to see nights and early mornings get cooler at the summer winds down. Pumpkin-flavored goodies have popped back up in restaurants. Football season looms just around the corner. But of course, perhaps most importantly of all, we’ve hit peak back-to-school season. School preparations include shopping for clothes to replace last year’s outgrown outfits, as well as stocking up on new supplies. At Northeast Security Solutions, we also recommend taking this season to address the unique security challenges the school year presents. In this post, we share some valuable security tips for school season.
First, we’ll look at what makes this season a little unique from a security standpoint. With this knowledge under our belts, we’ll move on to some ways you can track activity within your home. Since so much of school season security revolves around knowing your kids’ whereabouts, we’ll spend some significant time here. From there, we’ll shift our focus to smart security solutions that can make this school season as secure as possible. Now, let’s dive in and check out some of the unique security threats posed when school season hits!
What Makes School Season Security Unique?
School season brings about a few unique security concerns for families. For starters, the end of summer vacation often means the beginning of homes being empty all morning and afternoon. Instead of having kids in and out of your home all day, now your home will stay vacant on a very predictable basis. We’ve discussed the attractiveness of an empty home for burglars in many blog posts. Therefore, we’ll want to find ways to combat this security threat.
Additionally, you’ll also want to track activity within your home during your absence. Making sure your kids get home on time, and stay in the areas of the home you desire, should take priority here. Of course, we’ll help you take care of this area of concern as well. Now, let’s look at how you can make sure your home stays secure in your absence both when your home is empty and when kids are home without you!
Interactive cellular monitoring through Alarm.com allows users to control their alarm through a cell phone app and receive important alarm alerts instantaneously.
Tracking Security-Related Activity
As we’ve pointed out, many of our security tips for school season revolve around securing your home while you are away. This includes securing both an empty home and a home with kids and no parental supervision. The tips included here can greatly help you tick off these important security boxes! First, we’ll look at how interactive security monitoring can help you ensure your home’s alarm system stays armed when you need it most. We’ll also look at how this same monitoring option can help you track your kids’ comings and goings. Then, we’ll focus on installing unique alarm sensors to keep certain areas of your home off limits.
The Interactive Security Advantage
We’ve long touted the unique security provided by installing a monitored alarm system in your home. When we monitor security systems, we prefer to do so with our Alarm.com cellular dialer. This dialer provides a truly unique alarm monitoring experience in the form of interactive security monitoring. When we mention “interactive” monitoring, we refer to the ability for your alarm to interact directly with you and other alarm users through a smartphone app. For starters, this lets you control your security system with your phone. School season provides prime opportunities for your family to forget to alarm the security system. With everyone changing their morning routine, sometimes the last person out doesn’t realize it’s their turn to arm the security system. Now, you can look at your security system’s status and change it with the press of a button!
Just as importantly, interactive monitoring provides you with instant text alerts that you can customize to your liking. For example, these alerts generally notify you to any alarm activation events. Furthermore, you can also create an alert to find out when someone arms or disarms your security system. If you use different alarm codes for different family members, this alert will even tell you who has used the alarm! Therefore, if a different family member gets home first than usual, you will know. Finally, you can also create alerts for events that do not happen. This allows you to set an alert for a specific time that you expect someone home. If nobody disarms the security system by then, you will know immediately. These alerts add tremendous security to families with students. Next up, we’ll explore the option of adding extra security sensors to improve school season security.
Getting Creative with Contact Sensors
In our post sharing Unconventional Uses for Contact Sensors, we discuss adding security by installing contacts in creative areas, instead of just on exterior doors. This concept works especially well for families with school-aged children. For example, placing contacts on medicine and liquor cabinets can help secure areas of your home that children shouldn’t approach. Additionally, installing them on closets or parents’ bedroom doors can help you catch kids trying to snoop. We can program these sensors to create an alarm response even when your kids are home after disarming the security system.
Of course, you want to secure these areas without creating the police dispatch that alarm events usually create. We have a few options to make this happen. For starters, we can program certain sensors to create a siren response and phone call to you, but not a police dispatch. Therefore, even if you miss the phone call, you won’t have to worry about this potential.
Even more efficiently, our Alarm.com interactive customers can create this security by setting up detailed notification alerts. For example, you can choose specific contacts that provide an alert any time they detect activity. Therefore, you will have an alert and timestamp after any attempt your kids or a guest makes at breaching any area you wish to keep private. This makes adding these sensors a quick and efficient way to add school season security! Now, let’s take a look at a security tip involving unique smart home appliances.
Alarm.com doorbell cameras allow you to see and communicate with visitors to your home.
Finding Smart Security Solutions
Over the past several years, smart security solutions have risen sharply in popularity. This equipment can provide instant security feedback and, in some instances, even fix issues for you. The smart security devices that we install take advantage of our Alarm.com cell dialer’s built-in Z-Wave hub. “Z-Wave” refers to a mesh network that originates from our dialer and allows you to control a variety of smart devices with your Alarm.com app!
For example, smart cameras and smart doorbells can alert you to activity in and around your home. In addition to sending instant video-based alerts, these devices also save footage to the cloud for future review. Z-Wave locks let you track access to your home by sending you alerts when someone locks or unlocks the door. Furthermore, you can even use these devices to lock and unlock your doors remotely. Smart thermostats let you control your home’s temperature remotely and receive alerts if the house gets too hot or cold. Finally, the Smart Valve + Meter will even shut your home’s water off upon detecting a leak and alert you to inefficient activity! For more information on these smart products that get even more valuable during this time of year, check out our Smart Security Solutions for Any Application.
Putting Our Security Tips for School Season to Work
We hope that these security tips for school season help you bolster your own security this year! Furthermore, we invite you to contact us with any questions this post raises for you. We will happily answer any and all of your security-related inquiries. Moreover, we also encourage you to take advantage of our free site survey program. We offer compimentary security audits and equipment quotes to both new and existing customers alike. During our visit, we can address your security concerns and even make suggestions of our own! Together, we can create a complete security plan to keep you and your family as safe and secure as possible, both during school season and beyond.