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Comment by selykg | Hacker News Reader

These types of home security systems are more a deterrent than they are anything else. In fact, the ONLY reason I think I'd personally invest in would be automated alerts for fire or emergency situations.

If someone wants into your house, they will get into your house. There's giant glass windows in most homes these days and door locks are hardly much more than a speed bump.

All you should look at ADT for is simply making you not the easiest house to get into. But if someone wants into your house, a security system is unlikely to be something that stops them.

Edit: to be more clear, I think the deterrent part is the equivalent of putting an ADT sign in a window or nearby. THAT is the deterrent, not the system itself.

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My house was broken into with the high tech method of a rock through the sidelight window, right on top of the ADT sticker; so much for that theory. This occurred @ 10am on a weekday when we were out for less than an hour too.

We added (real!) cameras after this and for the next 2 years freaked out every time an alert hit our phones. Now there are so many false positives that it's conditioned us to be less uptight.

My sister has a monitored alarm where I'm a secondary contact. On a recent alarm they phoned my to ask if I wanted them to call the cops. As I'm (at least) second in line this had to take at least 15 minutes since the alarm, plus the police response time (tip: minor property crime is not a priority for police). The burglars were long gone by the time anyone got there.

So my point is it's largely security theatre, like airport security. It makes you feel better I guess but does nothing.

All this is exactly why I've never paid for a security system. I have some cameras in the house but that's more to monitor the kids when we (parents) are out of the house.

> So my point is it's largely security theatre, like airport security.

It's difficult to improve on as well.. good physical security is directly at odds with accessibility and livability.

> It makes you feel better I guess but does nothing.

Worse than that.. as you've noted, it's reconditioned your expectations and it belies the fact that you can never truly secure anything in your home.

If you truly have something valuable, you can either insure it and hope for the best, or store it somewhere other than a space optimized for sleeping, eating and bathing.

If the cost of the security system is less than the discount you get on your insurance policy, then it may be worthwhile purely for that, but it's highly unlikely that the technology will be used to capture the thief let alone recover your property. There is much better and less intrusive technology for that purpose anyways.

Home security seems on the same footing with home anti virus.

My inclination for these kind of systems isn't so much to prevent the act from happening in real-time but more around providing law enforcement with enough footage to land the perpetuators in jail. Of course if that part of the system is broken then we're truly screwed no matter what.

Exactly, the evidence is sometimes worth it if the burglars were dumb enough to not wear a mask. I assume most would be.

It's peace of mind.

I know 100% if someone wants into a house, they will get into the house. I know that when people put 'this property protected by Smith & Wesson' signs on their house, it only informs burglars there are guns to be stolen. I always joked I don't want ADT, just the sign.

But now that I actually have an alarm system, it's great. If I leave for the weekend, I know nobody has broken in. It won't stop them, but I at least know.

You can get peace of mind with mental practice. Tech toys aren't needed.

All ADT does is call the police. During the most recent civil unrest incidents the police were not responding to 911 calls like this, making it pretty useless when you actually need it.

Police don't really respond to alarm calls anyways. The high degree of false alarms generally puts responding to these at the bottom of the list of things to respond to.

In a city. In a wealthy suburban community the police are usually happy to have something more exciting than off-leash pets and minor traffic violations.

You 100% know that advertising that you own a gun increases the chance of a break in? How do you know that?

You're combining their two statements. They said that somebody who wants in your house is 100% going to get in if they want to badly enough.

They also said that saying that you have guns definitely increases the attractiveness to burglars. Guns are one of the things that would be easily (not legally) sold to somebody or kept to use in another crime. It wouldn't take long to figure out how many people live in a house and if all of them were gone.

Consider getting an extra car. Not universally applicable, but we have one more car than we use. So there's always a car in our driveway, lending an appearance of occupancy.

Not sure it's any better than an ADT sign, but maybe just as good.

Also, you can buy a couple of cheap wall outlet timers and plug a couple of lamps in to create the appearance that someone’s home.

I have a couple of smart lights/smart outlets that do this.

I mostly needed it because for whatever weird ass reason my living room doesn't have lights despite being built in 1994. The lamp I use is fine, but the wall switch for the outlet it's plugged into is by the front entry door, I come in the side entrance where the garage is. So I've rigged it up so that I can turn the lamp on from the garage entry, thus allowing me to just turn on the one light I need anyway if it's dark.

So when I'm away I have it set to turn the lamp on near the time the sun sets, then turn off around my usual bed time. HomeKit is nice and lets me easily turn these automations on or off. Usually during the winter it gets dark anyway so I have another automation that turns the lamp on when I pull into the driveway.

I think that particular outlet is from iDevices and cost something like $40. Worth it imo.

My neighborhood gets a lot of break-ins, and I've tried to understand whether there is a causal link showing that electronic home security lowers break-in risk. The deterrent effect makes intuitive sense, but it's surprisingly hard to find empirical evidence for (even recognizing that it's not the kind of thing you can run an A/B test for). Additionally the internet is so awash in marketing (there's almost never an incentive to tell someone not to buy something) that it's very hard to ascertain the facts, and consumers' behavior in these matters tends to be guided more by perception than true solutions.

I had a similar experience when considering a water filter. In that situation, I was able to actually figure out a sensible path, thanks to a very few unbiased websites: test your water or read your locality's water reports to figure out what your drinking water contaminants actually are, then figure out specifically which filter (if any) will address those specific contaminants. Meanwhile, plenty of people will buy a mass-market water filter for "peace of mind" which may actually be neither necessary nor sufficient.

Well my insurance company offers a minor discount if you have an alarm, so that's about as emperical as it gets. From their perspective you're ~ 2% less likely to have a significant claim with an alarm vs. without

The water filter question is interesting, would you mind sharing which sites you used for guidance? In this same situation right now and having trouble navigating the waters.

Ah, I didn't save them unfortunately.

> If someone wants into your house, they will get into your house.

Is ADT saying it prevents people from being able to break in?

Home security is about alerting police, in case someone does break in, so they don't have time to get many valuables.

Newer systems include video, to help convict them.

It's not about "you can't get it", it's about "you're more likely to get caught, so don't even try it."

No, I think what I was saying was more a reminder more than anything. Understanding limits is useful in a conversation like this.

I don't think someone is more likely to get caught, do you have any sort of documentation to indicate that? I suspect crimes of opportunity might be more likely to be caught I guess, but not someone with any foresight.

If a thief goes in under the impression the house has a security system, it would be easy enough to prevent recognition. Oversized jacket, hat, some sort of mask. All of it nondescript/black, no logos, etc. Apply a little bit of thought to this and it's easy.

In my area, cops aren't likely to show up immediately anyway. Someone would have minutes, not seconds, to get in and out. Maybe in an area with private security or with a larger police force.

That all said though, I think people's fear of crime is much larger than reality. As I said, I think the only value I'd personally find in a system like this is the fire alerts and an emergency button to hit if necessary.

> Home security is about alerting police, in case someone does break in, so they don't have time to get many valuables.

I've had to deal with a few break-ins and every police officer I've talked to about it said that most burglars are in and out in a few minutes. They've mentioned that physical deterrents are helpful (ie. bars on windows) but not once have they said that an alarm system would help matters.

> so they don't have time to get many valuables.

You might want to be sitting down when I tell you how much your grandmothers Jewelry is worth.

This is true and is actually one of the ways they sell the system.

About five days after we bought our home the ADT salesman came to the door and after seeing that we were on the fence used this as another argument. Like you, I really only wanted it for the fire detection, and the fact that the panel has an emergency button and is located in the back but with clear line of sight to the front door.

We did have one break in during the 8 years we lived there, but the German Shepard was what stopped them, not the alarm sign in the yard.

Yea, all the sign does, for someone motivated enough, is tell them how much time they have. "Okay, they have a security system. Break in, grab the tv, grab the other stuff that's visible and worth something, then run"

At the end of the day... it will deter those that aren't interested in dealing with it. And for those that aren't deterred it just gives them the info they need to know it's a smash, grab and run situation.

It’s not just a deterrent. It also serves as a warning. If I am in the house, I want to know someone is breaking in. I have a lot of mixed feelings about gun laws, but I am definitely an advocate for anyone being able to have a gun in their home to protect themselves - even though I don’t own one.

I would also like to know if someone broke in my home if I am not there.

Yes, I am well aware of the statistics about gun ownership in the home, suicides, accidental shootings, etc.

When I bought my first and current house, the home inspector gave me some amazing advice.

The relevant advice here was "I'm not telling you to do this, but you can buy home alarm system stickers on eBay and thieves literally cannot know whether you actually have the system installed or not."

You need the fake sensors and cameras too.

In the city where I live there is a bylaw where you have to register your alarm system with the police, and must display a mandatory label in the window with a serial number visible at all time. I guess a thief could rely on that during their recon.

mine exists solely for my pets in case of fire or other emergency, everything else is covered by insurance.

ADT used to have a clause in their contracts you could only cancel during a narrow window near renewal, is that still an issue? They are pretty costly per month compared to some other providers, this even if you own your equipment

Not a clue as I don't use them. I think there are cheaper systems out there that provide fire/emergency options. Simplisafe for instance, haven't looked in awhile so I could be wrong, provides fire alerts and things like that.

Exactly why I have a security system right now. It's not souch for the theft deterrent than for the connected fire alarm now that I have two kids.

Also, you typically save a few hundred bucks on your insurance by having monitored alarms, so it pays for itself.

Not sure what your insurance is like, but mine is $1050/yr. An alarm system would save me $50, barely two months of service for something cheaper, barely one month on a more expensive plan.

I would NOT look at it as lowering insurance.

How typical is this? You'd think if this was "typically" the case, you'd see alarm monitoring signs everywhere, but you don't.

agreed the sticker is a big part of it. Although I will say a super loud alarm going off will probably scare way some people and the police do eventually show up if you have monitoring. If I am away from the house for weeks on end that is nice to have.

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