My sister’s house was broken into last week. She was out of town for a couple of days and someone kicked in her front door, stole quite a lot of things and did a good bit of damage. She did not have a security system but does now. This is something I have been considering for some time now and now even more. I am interested in a DIY wireless system. I don’t particularly care about a monitored system because the response time to such alarms is usually pretty slow. I want something that makes a buttload of noise so the scumbags are scared off. Any useful information from the CF experts would be appreciated.
Thanks!
“Apathy is the Glove into Which Evil Slips It’s Hand”.
the amount of noise means nothing. the give a **** level of the neighbors is what counts if you are going un-monitored.
I was working in Alabama one week and my customers customer left the door going into the garage unlocked so we could make repairs. This was all well and good except, as was her habit, she also set the house alarm. 30 seconds after we got into the garage the alarm went off. we were waiting for the man to show up in the driveway, figured being in the house wasn’t the best idea. Anyway, little old lady from down the street showed up and said it was her sisters house and ADT had her as a secondary contact if the homeowner was unavailable. woman knew who we were by our logo’d van so she wasn’t concerned and left. It took 15 more minutes for the man to show up. They were in no hurry either, cruised down the street at 15 mph enjoying the sunny day.
Get one loud enough to piss off a neighbor and you’re just as protected as if you had the monitoring.
Matt
15’ War Eagle w/60 Evin.
I disagree, we have Vivint and I have had the alarm bring the first responders twice. Both times took less than 8-10 minutes. Loud as hell alarm while it was going off too.
First time was a small kitchen fire, and the factory settings on our unit wouldn’t let us call off the fire dept. They showed up with 2 trucks. We now have it set that we can call them off if we have the situation under control or a false alarm.
The second time was when my little girl hit our silent distress call button on our remote without us knowing it. Vivint called me at work and said the distress signal had been hit and was everything ok? Me being at work obviously thought something happened so they kept the police on their way. 3 cars showed up a few minutes later.
$50 a month is well spent to me. I’ll never go without one again. All wireless, touch screen pad that works even if power is cut or no phone line. Gives me immediate severe weather alerts. Smoke detector, glass break sensor, and a key chain remote.
“Banana Pants”
Indigo Bay 170
90 Johnson
Wilderness Ride 115
Go with a service and reduce your homeowners by about 20 %.
big dog
DIY’s are good, wireless is good too, you will have to replace the battery in the sender, but it should last a couple of years. If you go with a company to install and monitor make sure you can use it unmonitored. My GF has a Brinks and is not usable unless you pay for their monitoring. She doesn’t use it because she doesn’t pay Brinks, and they do not do standalone systems. 
They are pretty simple systems and usually have good instructions.