4 Smart Systems to Integrate with Home Access Control
There’s nothing more important than the safety of your family. While it doesn’t do any good to continuously fret about safety threats if you’re not in immediate danger, there’s no harm in taking preventative steps to keep your home secure.
Smart home automation is an excellent tool for improving your home security. By integrating other systems with smart home access control, you can create a layered, multi-faceted security network. Here’s what homeowners in Lafayette and elsewhere in Louisiana can do to keep themselves safe.
SEE ALSO: How to Keep Your Family Safe with a Home Alarm System
LIGHTING CONTROL
Connecting your access control system and lighting control system is a logical way to combine smart home technologies. The principle is pretty simple: If anyone trips the alarm, your house lights come on and hopefully scare the intruder enough to make them leave.
You can take several different approaches to combining these systems. You can have every light flash on and off when someone breaks into your home, or certain lights can stay on constantly while others alternate. With either approach, the net result is a scared intruder and an aborted burglary attempt.
HOME AUDIO SYSTEM
Most alarms and access control systems already have an audio element of some sort, but connecting them to a whole-home audio system can yield additional benefits. The idea here is comparable to combining the alarm with lighting control, in that the audio system activates when someone trips the alarm.
Integrating these systems has two important results. First, any intruder gets blasted with noise upon entering a home, hopefully scaring them away. Second, and just as important, the sound lets anyone inside the home know that something’s wrong. This way, they have an opportunity to alert emergency responders and make sure they’re safe.
SURVEILLANCE CAMERAS
Surveillance cameras and access control systems are natural partners. The cameras are a deterrent by themselves, and they also record any suspicious activity around your home. Combining access control with surveillance cameras creates a formidable security barrier for any home.
There are many ways that cameras and access control work together to improve security around your home. One step you can take is to set up the access control system in such a way that any camera watching the spot where a break-in occurs automatically begins recording after the alarm is tripped. Another option is to set up automatic alerts to your smartphone or preferred smart device if something happens, letting you know something is wrong and giving you time to act.
HEATING AND AIR CONDITIONING
Keeping yourself safe at home is about more than stopping people from breaking in; you need to account for other dangers, including fires. Connecting access control to your home’s HVAC system and smoke detectors can help mitigate the risks posed by house fires.
In most instances, the real danger from house fires is the smoke, not the flames. Smoke makes its way through air ducts into other areas of a home, creating noxious fumes that are extremely hazardous. If your home security system detects hazardous fumes, your access control system can immediately unlock all entrances throughout your home to ensure everyone is able to exit safely.
These are just a few ways that harnessing automation can help make your home safer. To learn more, call us at (337) 268-9753 or visit our contact page.
