Why Your Smart Home System Is More Than Just a Home Alarm

When you think about getting a home security system installed, your primary concern might be to prevent theft from a burglary by alerting you and the police if someone were to break into your home. This is an important service; even homes in upper middle class and very upscale neighborhoods are vulnerable to burglary and home invasions. It might surprise you to know, however, that detecting an intruder is by no means the only benefit of having a home security and smart home system. In fact, you are more likely to utilize your new system’s many other functions than you are to ward off a burglary. Read on to find out how your security system can work for you.

If you are a parent who works, you might feel some concern every day when it comes to whether your kids are getting home safely from school. Depending on them to call or text you might or might not be an exercise in futility: How many times has your pre-teen forgotten to call, leaving you feeling anxious and annoyed? With a Harmony Security system, each family member has a unique code to disarm the alarm, and it will send an alert to your phone when your child has entered, allowing you to feel reassured that they are safe without having to take (or wait for) a phone call.

This is also a great feature for teenagers who have a curfew. If you are out for the evening and your teen is expected to be back before you arrive home, how will you know that they’ve made it home on time? An alert from your smart home system will keep you in the loop.

Do you work long hours? If you have a dog, hiring a dog walker to relieve your pup midway through the day can save your pet’s bladder and your carpeting. Without being the dog parent who calls the dog sitter every day, though, how can you feel secure in knowing that they showed up and that they armed the alarm again when they left? Thanks to the unique code system, you’ll know that they let themselves in and set the alarm again on their way out. This is also a great way to know that they spent the time you’re paying for and that they didn’t leave after five minutes if you’ve arranged a 30-minute playtime.

If you are a middle-aged adult, you might be part of the “sandwich generation.” This means that in addition to raising your own children, you might also be responsible for caring for an aging parent. If your parent lives in your home, your roles might have reversed: Now you are the one in charge of being sure that your mom or dad is getting up, taking his or her medication, and staying safe in the house. A fall or confusion when leaving the home could turn into a tragedy.

Your smart home security system can alert you to when your elderly relative has left his or her bedroom (as evidenced by lights turning on in the home), whether they open the door and arm the alarm, whether they went into the bathroom where their medication is kept, and so on. If normal everyday activity stops, you can get an alert about that, too, so you can check in and be sure all is well. Ask your security professional about how you can set up your system to help make caregiving more simple.

You might know that you can control your home thermostat from your office. This means that when you leave work on a warm evening, you can set the temperature a few degrees lower so you enter a comfortably cooled home. Did you know, however, that you can keep each room at a certain temperature during the day? Maybe you don’t want to waste energy cooling or heating the bedrooms when nobody is home but you do want to keep the main living areas at a specific temperature. You can do this with your smart system.

Another great feature is an energy saver. If someone leaves a window or the blinds open in the middle of a hot afternoon, your system can raise the temperature on the thermostat to prevent the air conditioning from working overtime in an effort to cool things down. The technology can also tell you if your heating or air conditioning is not working and the home is at a temperature that is not within your comfortable limits so you can get an HVAC technician scheduled to check the problem.

Have you ever inadvertently left your refrigerator or freezer ajar? The result of that mishap can be hundreds of dollars worth of spoiled food. With a Tekna smart home system, this sort of loss can be a thing of the past. A sensor on your fridge can send you an alert that it was left open, which can prompt you to shut the door yourself or get in touch with someone at your house to close it tightly.

Another appliance that can have more severe consequences if it’s neglected is your smoke detector. With most detectors being hard-wired in, you might not remember to change the battery. If the detector chirps in the middle of the night, you might even be tempted to take it down to shut off the noise if you don’t have a spare battery handy. With a smart smoke detector, however, you’ll get an alert when the battery runs down so you can replace it at your earliest convenience.

A home security system can do so much more than keep unwanted visitors from entering your home. Contact Harmony Security today to find out how we can make your life easier with smart home technology. You’ll wonder what you ever did without it!