Learn about Home Security Networks

An integrated network of sensors and monitors that detects and warns you about events that could damage your home, such as fire, water leak, or unauthorized entry. These include standard home security systems with a monitoring service, and also more mix-and-match wireless security sensors that communicate with a home automation hub and send you alarms to your mobile device.

There are many options available now, in terms of how many and what types of sensors to monitor (cameras, entry detectors, motion detectors, temperature, heat, fire, smoke, and water leakage detectors). With wireless devices on a compatible network, you can choose which things to monitor. Alarms and warnings can go to your mobile devices directly, or if you pay a monthly subscription they can go to a professional monitoring service.

Improves resilience of your home to minimize damage to the structure, or injury to people and pets, by warning you as early as possible if something hazardous is happening.

Home security systems began to grow in popularity in the USA in the 1920s, after World War I when there was an increase in break-and-enter rates. In the earliest days, people could subscribe to a network called "door shakers", which was a team of night watchmen who would go from house to house, shaking the doors to ensure that they were locked and all was well. Within a few years, this technology advanced to include electromagnetic entry detectors that would cause a bell to ring if a door was opened, alerting both the residents and the night watch team.