 Home, sweet - and safe - home
Paul Furber
There are tons of gadgets available for making us safer while at home.
Consumer electronics have been responsible for many bad things. Singing birthday cards, for one. But there have been many good things too, especially for the home. For a reasonable price, today's technology can automate all sorts of commonplace activities in the home, keep an eye on sensitive areas and prevent intruders from coming in. Home automation is a vast topic but parts of it fall naturally into the security space, which we'll divide into three: surveillance, access and control.
Surveillance
Surveillance means keeping an eye on something. Since very few of us can afford to hire full-time guards to watch over our homes 24/7, we'll have to make do with cameras. And today's cameras are getting very advanced indeed. Roy Alves, country manager of camera manufacturer Axis, explains: "Our latest range has better video compression, more power supply options and better internet functionality than ever before." Axis has also come out with some simplified versions of its standard cameras that should be attractive to home users. If you've never used an internet Protocol camera, we suggest you try one. You can control it through the web browser, watch certain areas of the picture for movement and even monitor it remotely via a cellphone.
Access
Access is a complicated topic and companies with large properties or multiple buildings often have to take great care ensuring that it is controlled. Not coincidentally, by far the most vulnerable bit of access control is the one with the most human interaction: who do you let in the door? Keys get lost or stolen, as do remotes.
But there's something we all carry around with us that can be used to open doors: our fingerprints. Industrial-strength fingerprint readers - the same ones used by the government and the mines - are now cheap enough to put in the home. Want to limit home access to your family only? Enrol their fingerprints and only they get access. Want to let the babysitter in and out for just one evening? No problem. The gardening service from only 10h00 to 11h00 on Tuesdays? Done.
Check out www.ideco.co.za for more information and maybe one day we’ll be getting rid of our keys entirely.
Control
The final piece of the home security puzzle is control. Let’s face it, many systems and appliances in our homes need our direct intervention to work properly. Lights and alarms must be switched on and off, to name but two. It would be much easier to have them switch on and off automatically whether we’re there or not - or perhaps when someone else is there who shouldn't be. Luckily, this is quite easy. The most popular standard protocol for home automation is called X10 and it works by using the 220V power supply in your wall so there's no extra wiring needed. X10 is useful for automating manual chores but it has great security applications too. Lights can be dimmed automatically, motion sensors can switch on any number of lights wherever specified and controllers can direct robotic machine guns to open fire at intruders in your driveway. Okay, we made up that last part. But if you do get something similar working, mail us the video and the full plans please.
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