Wireless burglar alarms?

[hanser]

My daughter's house has a 12 year old 'Yale' wireless alarm. She's only been in the house a month and the alarm is erratic with false alarms during the night. She's had a guy out who's tested settings etc and made the control panel inactive by battery removal but the back box is still giving spurious alarms.

Of course, the back box is above the conservatory making access to it problematic. Anyhow, the whole lot's
going :roll: very soon!

But the question is what to replace it with? Something hard wired or wireless? The engineer who tested the old Yale system suggested that the technology of the wireless systems had moved on and they are now more reliable and less prone to false alarms.

Any thoughts/ suggestions guys?

 

[Mcluma]

I just did a Visonic wireless system installation - look them up

They are good as good as wired

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Have you considered doing away with an alarm system altogether? In my experience, they are far more hassle than they're worth, and good security is more a matter of good quality locks and bolts on doors and windows, and common sense about not leaving valuables on view. You could always leave a box attatched to the wall to act as a visual deterrent to casual passing scumbags.

Other peoples' alarms drive me potty. Never a week goes by without a power outage setting them all off, and nobody takes a blind bit of notice until they switch off automatically after (it feels like) several hours. The only people in the neighbourhood to have suffered a theft had an alarm. Which didn't activate.

 

[RogerS]

Mate of mine works for a good quality security company and hates the wireless alarms as they keep giving false alerts...as your daughter has found.

 

[Mike.S]

My tuppence worth:

We had a wired alarm system fitted following a burglary (first for both in 30 years). We had received a flier from the police 2 days previously warning of a spate of burglaries in the area. Our door and windows all had good locks and we had retired neighbours who invariably were at home. Needless to say the burglars just forced the windows - 2 held (though one had the glass broken) but the third gave way - casement stile (sound wood) just gave way. We subsequently learned that all houses targeted did not have an alarm and DG was not a deterrent - just forced.

So, we spoke to several alarm companies. Wireless seemed popular but when pressed it became apparent this was because of ease of installation and they were not as reliable as wired. We chose wired (more expensive) and nearly 3 years on - no false alarms.

My conclusions? Alarms (real, not a 'box') do act as a deterrent. Wired is better (mains + battery needed to back up when power supply is interrupted) based on reliability and avoiding need to change batteries in each part of the alarm system.

 

[finneyb]

Have you considered doing away with an alarm system altogether? In my experience, they are far more hassle than they're worth, and good security is more a matter of good quality locks and bolts on doors and windows, and common sense about not leaving valuables on view. You could always leave a box attatched to the wall to act as a visual deterrent to casual passing scumbags.

Other peoples' alarms drive me potty. Never a week goes by without a power outage setting them all off, and nobody takes a blind bit of notice until they switch off automatically after (it feels like) several hours. The only people in the neighbourhood to have suffered a theft had an alarm. Which didn't activate.

+1 for cheshirechappie , also police do not respond and sure as hell I'm not going to as a neighbour, I have a pension scheme that I need to max out.

Brian

 

[mind_the_goat]

Can you just reuse the box with it's flashing lights so it looks like there is a full system fitted?

 

[Flynnwood]

My daughter's house has a 12 year old 'Yale' wireless alarm. She's only been in the house a month and the alarm is erratic with false alarms during the night. She's had a guy out who's tested settings etc and made the control panel inactive by battery removal but the back box is still giving spurious alarms.

Of course, the back box is above the conservatory making access to it problematic. Anyhow, the whole lot's
going :roll: very soon!

But the question is what to replace it with? Something hard wired or wireless? The engineer who tested the old Yale system suggested that the technology of the wireless systems had moved on and they are now more reliable and less prone to false alarms.

Any thoughts/ suggestions guys?

What is the budget for a new alarm?

That's fairly important.

 

[hanser]

Well guys - this may make you laugh......it made me cry

I hired a gizmo for accessing above the conservatory, reached up to the heavens and opened the alarm box expecting a cacophony of sirens and.......it was a dummy box! Putting a few pieces of info together it would appear that the alarm is from a house several hundred yards away. In the dead of night, a little disoriented and perhaps a little scared ( she lives alone) she had assumed that as the alarm was so, so loud that it was hers. An easy mistake, I guess.

Thanks for your comments and suggestions. I had guessed that there was a 50/50 call on wireless v hard wire. Living as a single an alarm is a sensible precaution with the facility to 'arm' the downstairs at night. Having recently bought the house, her budget for the new system is tight.

I think I need to do some more research.

 

[Flynnwood]

Well guys - this may make you laugh......it made me cry

I hired a gizmo for accessing above the conservatory, reached up to the heavens and opened the alarm box expecting a cacophony of sirens and.......it was a dummy box! Putting a few pieces of info together it would appear that the alarm is from a house several hundred yards away. In the dead of night, a little disoriented and perhaps a little scared ( she lives alone) she had assumed that as the alarm was so, so loud that it was hers. An easy mistake, I guess.

Thanks for your comments and suggestions. I had guessed that there was a 50/50 call on wireless v hard wire. Living as a single an alarm is a sensible precaution with the facility to 'arm' the downstairs at night. Having recently bought the house, her budget for the new system is tight.

I think I need to do some more research.

The reason that I asked for a budget, was that a friend of mine (BT engineer) went through this exact same research one month ago for an alarm system for his parents house.

He purchased for them a Yale HSA 6400 (wireless) with a couple of extras for circa £200 in total.

Out of the box, you can connect it to the phone line which automatically dials up to 3 numbers (in rotation) if an alarm is set off. The alarm can also be controlled by dialling into it (if you have access to the security code).

The standard PIR's can (apparently) be triggered by spiders/moths crawling over them although there are pet-friendly PIR's which handle that. If she has cats which like to jump onto furniture/stairs though, careful positioning of the PIR's is required.

 

[NikNak]

...... She's had a guy out who's tested settings etc and made the control panel inactive by battery removal but the back box is still giving spurious alarms.

err..... so much for the guy that came and 'inspected' the system :shock: .... sounds like he was the thief to me



Nick

 

[SlayWitch]

I don't like wireless alarms exactly because of that. Never had one and I doubt I'll ever do