That’s great. How often do you test it?
> I used to work as an alarm technician
Ok, that explains a lot.
> you can't really prevent the pros breaking in, getting what they came for and getting out. But you can prevent someone spending a long time inside the house looking for things to steal.
That’s the main use-case for such an alarm then.
Most sensors gets used on a daily basis — as they are part of other home automation, like motion activated lighting. I can put the system in "walk test" mode, which gives a verification sound every time a sensor is activated. And there is a siren test function. I try to do those about once a month.
> That’s the main use-case for such an alarm then.
I'd say so. As I said; we have good neighbors that would react to the alarm, and I get notified on my phone. But the pros are normally gone before anyone has time to react anyways :)
We chose a ‘dumb’ old school wired alarm because they run reliably for years with just battery changes and dust blow-outs, and linked it to a network dome camera to handle the ‘smarts’.