Smart burglar alarms: Look who just tossed their hat into the ring ... It's, er, Ring The smart home battleground has moved to security systems, with smart doorbell biz Ring announcing this week a new product just days before Nest dove into the same market. The Ring Protect is very similar to Nest's Secure system launched last month in that it aims to be a simpler, friendlier version of traditional beige boxes …
@AC
Qualify wirelesss in this instance.
Piggy backed on WiFi and networked - I'd agree, it's a solution looking for a problem - best not to go there.
But wireless sensors communicating directly with the alarm base station in a dedicated closed autonomous system - they have a role in buildings where a wired solution may not be so easily deployed.
I am not convinced, because you're going to have to take decisions on failure mode you simply don't have with cable.
What if a sensor becomes unavailable?
You could sound the alarm, which means that someone creative can plant a directional jammer with a timer program and make your alarm go off at random moments - user kills it because of the harassment factor and presto, no more alarm. More clever is a silent alarm, but it has the same problem - sensor will be deemed defective and will be disabled.
You could also ignore it going offline, which is even easier for a wannabe burglar. A clever one will would out frequencies, jam, and you're out of the game. It gets rather embarrassing if you have a giant hole in a door facing a sensor - I reckon you'll never get that approved for insurance.
...to see how they have anything to offer other than slick marketing aimed at the DIY brigade. I'd suggest that most installs in Oz are done by "licensed" security installers and breaking their brand affiliations will be difficult.
Given my 5 year old Bosch system can be controlled by my phone or my key ring, sends activity to my phone, triggers off-site upload of CCTV on alarm etc, how is this segment "ripe for shaking up"?
WTF? No its not! Why does the Reg continue to waste space on internet-of-tat IoT??? Consumers may be dumb as f*ck, but there's enough shocking front-page revelations in the past 2 years to shun IoT. If it can be hacked, it will. So better to have an oldschool closed & wired system to protect the things you value the most: namely yourself & your family!
Your headline writers got me here under false pretences.
For some reason I read the headline as: Look who just tossed their hat into the ring ... It's El Reg
Hmmm, I thought. Who do I trust more with my precious security, Google's data hoovering and random product updating and end-of-lifing? Or a bunch of spaceplane-launching drunks off the internet?
So what advantages exactly do these products have over a modern alarm system, like Vanderbilt SPC for example?
SPC can be operated remotely but also operate totally isolated if that's what desired. And it's an actual alarm system from a company with experience making actual alarm systems, not some thrown-together thing from an IoT company.
And you're not tied to some manufacturer's idea of what a system should look like - you hook up exactly the sensors needed.
Both wired and wireless sensors are available, and atleast the wired ones are industry standard which surely means a lot better options at better price points than proprietary gizmos.
Installation and operation is essentially trouble-free. Plus it keeps working if Amazon S3 goes down...
I think they'll have to change the name. I assumed it was some sort of defence against screwdriving.
I don't get all these burglar alarms with "subscriptions" at all. I mean I do get the lure of a "revenue stream" form the vendor's point of view I just don't see why anyone would want to keep paying. Around here you either have a completely stand-alone system that simply howls when triggered (with as much video archiving as your suitably concealed $50 Chinesium DVR's hard disk manages to hold) or if you're really posh, you're paying a subscription to a monitoring centre with actual goons who actually turn up on your actual doorstep a mere few dozens of minutes after any alarm. But $10 just to cloud something something... seriously, WTF?!?
Non IoT alarm systems also charge an even larger subscriptions - I was quoted £49.60 a month for someone to check the picture that gets taken every time one of the cats jump on the table and sets off the movement alarm. They say should it ever be a burgler, the police will be rushing around immediately to catch them in progress. I suggested the police were more likely to phone back in two weeks with the crime number for your insurance claim, and they should carry on fitting the alarm to next door instead.
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