My $.02 and it will likely not make security system companies happy.
In my entire LE career I only even responded to one good residential burglary alarm.
I would save the installation and monitoring fee and do the following-
Motion detection lights. Lights, lights, lots of lights, did I day lights?
Part of my job as the breacher for our team was to form our approach plan. The biggest pain in the a$$ was motion detection lights. The farther they are set out to spot from the house the worse it is. Not only is your movement compromised but the light is likely to attract the attention of those in the house and neighbors.
The next thing is a glass break siren alarm. These are great. Sound does a great job of flipping on the old fight or flight response. Since they have just broken the glass the chance is good that there is nobody to fight, so they flee. This is very common with commercial alarms. If there is more than one intruder it also limits their communication.
Don't get me wrong, I do like alarm companies for their stickers. Next time you see one of the vans out and about give the guy $20 and get some alarm stickers, better yet, yard signs.
There were several times that we would do a search warrant on a residence and their alarm would go off. The alarm would go from their phone line, to the monitoring center, to our dispatch, and out to patrol. By the time this happened a 10 man team had made entry to the house, cleared it, had everybody in custody and turned the residence over to detectives.- George
In my entire LE career I only even responded to one good residential burglary alarm.
I would save the installation and monitoring fee and do the following-
Motion detection lights. Lights, lights, lots of lights, did I day lights?
Part of my job as the breacher for our team was to form our approach plan. The biggest pain in the a$$ was motion detection lights. The farther they are set out to spot from the house the worse it is. Not only is your movement compromised but the light is likely to attract the attention of those in the house and neighbors.
The next thing is a glass break siren alarm. These are great. Sound does a great job of flipping on the old fight or flight response. Since they have just broken the glass the chance is good that there is nobody to fight, so they flee. This is very common with commercial alarms. If there is more than one intruder it also limits their communication.
Don't get me wrong, I do like alarm companies for their stickers. Next time you see one of the vans out and about give the guy $20 and get some alarm stickers, better yet, yard signs.
There were several times that we would do a search warrant on a residence and their alarm would go off. The alarm would go from their phone line, to the monitoring center, to our dispatch, and out to patrol. By the time this happened a 10 man team had made entry to the house, cleared it, had everybody in custody and turned the residence over to detectives.- George