ADT sales guy said I can get the alarm system installed but it needs a $50/month subscription for 2 years where it calls the police if someone breaks in.

I don't care about the police service but just wanted the alarm installed ASAP because I was nervous moving to a new house and wanted it on at night. I'm home all day anyways. He said after two years I can cancel the subscription and the alarm would still work just making noise if someone opens the door while its on.

Now I called to cancel the subscription since it's been 2 years and the account team says no the alarm won't work AT ALL if I don't have the subscription. Like, I can't turn it on and it won't make noise.

Wtf. I paid so much money for the alarm to be installed and then the subscription for two years assuming I can stop paying it at some point. So like thousands so far. They did lower the monthly fee to $25 but I still don't wanna pay for the service I don't want.

Does anyone have experience with this? Idk who's right - the sales person or the account manager. I feel so fucked over.

My teen has some severe behavioral issues. Last night he shimmied out of his second floor window using a blanket. We are lucky he didn’t injure himself and we found out relatively quickly. He has two casement windows and had wrapped the blanket around the mullion bar to lower himself. I don’t think restricting the opening on the inside would work because all he needs to do is sneak a screwdriver upstairs to pop it off. Is it possible to glue or secure one of the windows from the outside? On the other window we would put an exterior window alarm and it would still be accessible for emergencies. We have removed the cranks already, he’s just really resourceful.

Recently the house next door to me was sold to a company of some sort that's using it as a halfway house or something for adults with various issues. It's not government owned. Ive already had residents knocking on my door (two days into them moving in!) asking to use my phone to call for a ride to get them out of the house because they were afraid for their own safety due to the OTHER people living in it. (Yes I did call the police to do a wellness check for this person, the tenant was very polite and clearly unhappy with their situation, and did get relocated).

Let me say first and foremost that I am sympathetic to people who are trying their best to survive and I intend to be a good neighbor to them, but given the nature of how this has already gotten strange I think I need to consider more security options.

I have kids whom I've already given a good lesson to about safety, kindness, and awareness.........but being single income I cannot throw a huge amount of money at anything advanced.

Our yards aren't large, approx 1/4 acre total, and they can see straight into our side bedroom and bathroom windows. We've always kept blackout shades up on those anyway.

Should I be putting up recorded video monitoring first, or alarms? I'm not in a position to throw $1500 at this, but I am reasonably skilled enough to run network cable and install my own stuff if needed. It's just that the security market technology is changing so fast that my current knowledge is rather outdated.

Does anyone know of a smart/coded doorknob that also has a deadbolt? I was hoping to just have one key for both and I would like both to require a code for extra security. My house now just has a deadbolt that is coded. Looking online, I only see them sold separate, which would require separate keys.

Hello, I work for a national company that does a diy customer base. We have been sending iq5 panels with the 319.5mhz daughter cards and after the customer installs the card they cannot learn in their legacy ge sensors or alula 319 sensors. Our regular techs that install for the non diy base have reported no issues. Anybody else experiencing problems with Qolsys IQ5. Johnson controls says there no issue with equipment.

What I am looking for:
- smart locks that can lock and unlock from a remote and my phone. Could have a pin pad on the outside but I don’t care about that.
- wireless, motion activated cameras. Preferably ones that have an sd card so I don’t have to pay monthly for their data. Also preferably have a no drill attachment for the gutter, as I have jerry-rigged mine to be on the gutter. The longer range the WiFi can be the better.
- entry sensors connected to a base station that will ding when opened and if armed will set off the alarm being opened.
-preferably one brand so it’s all in the same app.

I have had simplisafe for years and not a day goes by I don’t regret pouring so much money into their system. I think it’s rated highly because of their monitoring, which I don’t even use or need. Their actual products are awful. Truly awful.

Cameras are $200 each but I’d say 75% of the time there’s issue. If it does catch the motion, it won’t catch it until it’s nearly out of frame. It will often catch motion and then say “no video recorded”. Or it will simply not register motion at all. I can watch the motion with my own eyes go right through the camera and nothing. They have tried to tell me it’s the angle of the camera or how close it is to wifi. My front door camera is about 5 feet from the wifi and perfectly in view of everything I want it to catch. Still issues.

Smart locks will tell you it needs to update, then refuse to recalibrate and tell you to contact support. You’ll wait with support for an hour running through all the things you already tried. After about 17 tries it may work, but you’ll just have to go through it all again in a month when it decides it can’t calibrate anymore.

I’ve kept it because of sunken cost fallacy and how much money I’ve already spent on this stupid system but I’m sick of it not working and them telling me they can’t help me with THEIR PRODUCT because I bought it from a third party. Insanity.

Hi, I live in a villa and I would like to install my first camera system. I wanted to ask first of all if there are valid battery/solar systems or if it is still better to focus on traditional current-powered systems. Secondly, I would like to know which are the best brands in terms of video quality and privacy? I will be forced to put them on the facades of the house because my Wi-Fi can’t cover my garden and so I can’t think of installing them on poles. I was looking at the dual lens rooms so as to orient the fixed lens on one side and the other on the other side so as to cover two areas with a single camera. What do you think? Does it make sense?

I've just got the plug-in sounder and I can't seem to get the light to work (entry, alarm etc).

The light itself is functional (it works when I cut the power) but I can't seem to configure it to strobe etc.

Anyone have any experience please?

I live in an apartment and one of my family uses a home health service. So staff are often coming in and out of various rooms.

A few months ago I noticed that a bedroom closet was missing hundreds of dollars worth of my possessions, and that was in the timeframe one of the staff was present. I reported the staff and he was replaced with another staff member, and I also bought a lock for the closet door. A couple days ago, I was trying to find my old video games and consoles which were in the living room, only to find them missing. Hundreds of dollars worth as well. I don't know if it was that same staff member from before and I just hadn't noticed until now.

I'm pretty depressed over losing my stuff like that, and now I don't know what would be the way to prevent it.

I was thinking of surveillance cameras but how would I get good coverage throughout, especially since this involved sensitive areas like bedrooms? I don't like the idea of cameras recording the inside of the apartment live and uploading online. I was also thinking of mounting cameras above the doors that could maybe activate only when the doors are opened or closed. But staff bring in their own bags so in theory they could hide stolen things inside their bags before passing by any door cams.

Any ideas?

I just bought a house that came with a Concord A4GW50-A installed.

Its set uo through the smart life app.

I can't for the life of me get it to connect to Google home. I link to smart life, but it doesn't find my alarm.

Can I get it to connect to android auto? I'd live to arm and disarm from my car.

Also, does anyone know anywhere that still stocks the remotes for it?

Thanks

I’m looking for an outdoor camera for the front of my house. I want to cover the driveway, front yard and sidewalk, but I’m worried that if I go too wide, anyone farther away is just going to look tiny in the footage.

Would it make more sense to get one really wide camera, or something with two separate views so each side can stay more focused?

Hey, I have installed SimpliSafe and have been very satisfied with it overall actually. The sensors work great and it was easy to set up. I am having one issue where I have a detached garage not far from the house, pretty much almost attached to the house. The house is 2 stories with the first floor, and garage being block, and top floor being wood. The router is on the second floor. I have some cameras out front and in the backyard as well as the outside of the garage. None of the cameras outside of the house would get decent signal, so I was recommended a mesh system. After installing this, with mesh hotspots near all the windows and doors downstairs, I now get good signal to all the cameras except the one on the other side of the garage. I have even tried placing a mesh hotspot outside the garage and inside the garage to try and get the signal there but it’s hit or miss, and inconsistent. The cameras are WiFi only, otherwise I would just try to run a cable out there and call it a day after all this frustration. Any advice would be greatly appreciated on how to get WiFi to reach this camera? Or if this is a SimpliSafe issue, however I did get the signal to reach other cameras with the use of mesh. I think the issue here is that it’s a cinder block garage.

Hi all, have been looking into getting two cameras for my property that will record 24/7. I do like the poe reolink cameras with the nvr but working out too expensive. Would Annke be a good choice? was looking into this one as reasonable enough price wise. Just looking to see if ppl would think they are a decent enough brand to buy from. Thanks 😊

H800 - 4K 4 Channel PoE Security System with 1 Bullet & 1 Turret Cameras, Human & Vehicle Detection, Color & IR Night Vision, Built-in Mic, RTSP Supported

SKU: AE-N44PAM-I91DL01-I91DM01-2TB

The Situation

A neighbor’s dog left a "deposit" on my front lawn sometime over the last 7 days. The neighbor claims it could have been any stray and is laughing it off because nobody caught them red-handed. It is now a matter of honor.

The deposit blends well into the grass, so spotting static changes at a glance is difficult. The camera’s built-in target/motion detection missed the act (likely due to sensitivity/target size settings or distance).

The Setup & Data

• Camera: Hikvision DS-2CD2387G2P-LSU (8MP Panoramic ColorVu 180°)
• NVR: Hikvision DS-7616NI-K2
• Data: 7 full days of continuous 24/7 video - the poop is in the corner of the video (not visible)

What I’ve Tried

• NVR Smart Search in Hik Central Lite: Either not properly supported with this specific panoramic stream/K-series NVR combo or completely failing to index the event retroactively.
• Manual scrubbing: Scrubbing 168 hours of 8MP panoramic footage at normal speeds is brutal, and high-speed playback makes it easy to miss a 30-second stop by a dog.

What I'm Looking For / Ideas

I am willing to export the footage and process it locally (Docker, scripts, etc.). What is the most efficient way to isolate this event? The patch of grass is more or less isolated - if I can get a movement there (taking into account that e.g. sun is shining etc.) this would be much help!

If anyone has a workflow, script, or toolchain that can parse 7 days of video to catch an event like this, please let me know. Help me bring closure to this neighborhood dispute.

(post corrected with help of AI)

My wife and I recently moved into a house that came with an installed camera system. The cameras are gen IV cameras and I finally got the app working so I can view the cameras on my phone as long as I'm connected to the same network as the system. There are two monitors in the house for the system so we can see the cameras from inside the house but we would like the option to view them on our phones as well.

So my question is do y'all connect your system to the internet for mobile/remote viewing?
I know I've seen clips of people hacking into ring cameras and what not and talking to people or spying on them. Is that a big concern with a system like this as well?
Also do I just need to port forward my NVR system to be able to view the cameras on my phone out of the house? or is there a different way I should do it?

The app I'm using is XMV to view the cameras.

Any advice is appreciated and any other tips are welcome. I am excited for the camera system as I had looked at something similar in our old house and was waiting to install something later.

I recently moved into a house that’s got a wireless security system with mostly motion detectors and window/door sensors. The previous owner, for whatever reason, removed the keypad with a giant hole in the wall where it used to be but left the wireless receiver which is a Napco GEM-RECV 16. Here’s a photo of the inside of the panel: https://imgur.com/a/lm3Y6Oy

I know next to nothing about home security systems so is there any way I can find a compatible keypad to connect to the receiver and keep using the sensors installed around the house? If so, how would I figure out which ones will work with the receiver?

Thanks so much in advance!

We've recently purchased a home (1900 terraced house in NY). 3 floors and a basement, a roof with a skylight/hatch, a back garden with a single door into the home.

The house hasn't had an alarm system. As part of our home insurance, we will be setting up a system but I don't want to cheap out or buy consumer-ready gear with subscriptions and poor build quality. I want the starting setup to be a first step in building out a more all-encompassing ecosystem that might take longer and more funds to put together. I plan on setting up a home networking system using Unifi products (including a G4 Doorbell Pro - if I ever comes back in stock) so I figure this might work well with home security needs.

I am very much a novice in this area so any advice is much appreciated (and please don't hesitate to simplify if you think necessary - it probably is).

I'm looking for indoor cameras that can be viewed remotely which can be setup/used easily. I don't need footage recording. Are there any options that I can trust to be private? I know vthat viewing it remotely means it has to go through someone's servers, but are there companies that are trusted to keep it secure and private?

For some context, my parents' alarm goes off sometimes when they're not in. So far it's always been a false alarm, but they still worry and will rush back home to check it. They want to have cameras they can view remotely so that they can check if it's a false alarm or not without having to go home. Needs to be easy enough for them to set up and use, and they want to know that nobody else is looking through their cameras.

Recently moved into a Rental home and am overwhelmed with the security system options.

Since it is a rental, I need something that won’t damage walls or the exterior to install. I’d also like to be able to view the history of the cameras if possible, so I think that takes Ring out.

Ideally I want to avoid paying a subscription and will self-monitor, but I do want to have the capability of getting notifications to my phone.

Please let me know of anything that fits best!

Help?
I have a vista 21ip goes to a next wireless communicator to my phone. It appears the company is no longer in business. Does anyone recommend an alternative to them?