We are currently planning to be snowbirds for a couple of years...that is, until the real estate market turns around and we sell our home. Right now we are trying to figure out how to monitor our brick and mortar home while we are gone.
We live in a rural area. We have no cable on our road, and Verizon is the only ISP that services us. We pay for a hot spot that gives us 5 GB per month.
What are our options for a home monitoring system? The two things we'd like to monitor are break ins (as stated above, we are quite rural) and temperature. (We have power outages several times a year and often for several days.)
We are not sure where to start, and hope someone on the boards has experience.
Thanks in advance.
The Bear II said
08:54 AM Aug 18, 2015
There are many systems available online, at home centers and electronic stores which provide monitoring and will call your cellphone or send a text/e-mail if a problem occurs. Most of these also include cameras which you can access from a smart phone through an associated website. If you connect it through a battery back up system then it will continue to work through a power failure for a short period of time.
Some of these systems can also be monitored by an alarm company which will call you.
Most alarm companies will install a system for free or a low price and then charge about $30 per month for monitoring.
A less expensive alternative-
We have several cameras from D-Link that I bought at Best Buy. These are easy to setup and can be configured with motion detection. The motion detection will call your smart phone. You get an app for your smart phone and pay a monthly fee to access the My Dlink website. You can view each of the cameras remotely using the smart phone or from a laptop/computer using an internet connection. The cameras will record the action for playback later. This won't detect fire or flood but will detect noise or motion.
In addition, I bought a couple of signs with the logo of a nationwide alarm company at a garage sale. I've placed these in the yard.
We haven't had any problem at home (knock on wood) in over 20 years while we've been out in the RV.
There are lots of systems to choose from.
Clay L said
11:20 AM Aug 24, 2015
We used FRONTPOINT . The system is made by GE. It uses a wireless cell provider (Verizon, Sprint, AT&T - strongest signal) data net. The sensors are wireless and battery powered. The control box has a 24 hour battery backup and sends you an email saying when a power outage starts and ends. If out long enough you get a call from them. There are a lot of different sensors available. We had door/window opening, motion, flood, freeze, and fire sensors.
Takes little time to install yourself - the sensors use double sided tape and stick where you want.
You can check the status via the internet and allow temporary entry of someone. You can also enable and disable the system via the internet.
-- Edited by Clay L on Monday 24th of August 2015 11:20:57 AM
-- Edited by Clay L on Tuesday 25th of August 2015 09:12:23 AM
soos said
01:13 AM Aug 25, 2015
Clay, I tried to follow your link (since we are building a house but plan on traveling most of the time) but it seems to lead back to this thread?
Some of these systems can also be monitored by an alarm company which will call you.
Most alarm companies will install a system for free or a low price and then charge about $30 per month for monitoring.
A less expensive alternative-
We have several cameras from D-Link that I bought at Best Buy. These are easy to setup and can be configured with motion detection. The motion detection will call your smart phone. You get an app for your smart phone and pay a monthly fee to access the My Dlink website. You can view each of the cameras remotely using the smart phone or from a laptop/computer using an internet connection. The cameras will record the action for playback later. This won't detect fire or flood but will detect noise or motion.
In addition, I bought a couple of signs with the logo of a nationwide alarm company at a garage sale. I've placed these in the yard.
We haven't had any problem at home (knock on wood) in over 20 years while we've been out in the RV.
There are lots of systems to choose from.
We used FRONTPOINT . The system is made by GE. It uses a wireless cell provider (Verizon, Sprint, AT&T - strongest signal) data net. The sensors are wireless and battery powered. The control box has a 24 hour battery backup and sends you an email saying when a power outage starts and ends. If out long enough you get a call from them. There are a lot of different sensors available. We had door/window opening, motion, flood, freeze, and fire sensors.
Takes little time to install yourself - the sensors use double sided tape and stick where you want.
You can check the status via the internet and allow temporary entry of someone. You can also enable and disable the system via the internet.
-- Edited by Clay L on Monday 24th of August 2015 11:20:57 AM
-- Edited by Clay L on Tuesday 25th of August 2015 09:12:23 AM
Sue
Sorry about that - Trying again FRONTPOINT.
Checked with PREVIEW and this one works now for me.