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Security Starts at the Street

The latest home security products stop would-be burglars before they get into the house.

Electronic security systems have been in our homes for over 100 years. For much of that time, it has been based on the same foundational principles: bad guys break into your house, a siren blares, and, if monitored, the system calls for help. All of this takes place after the crime has occurred. Someone’s already inside your home before any alarm goes off. The last century has been about reacting. Thankfully, things are starting to pivot from crime monitoring to stopping break-ins before they happen.

Home Security
Image by Dimitri Otis/Getty Images

Imagine a world where the moment someone steps onto your property they are instantly identified as friend or foe. You now have the distance between the street and the front door to deter any further shenanigans. Loud sirens, flashing lights, and even live central station operators admonishing would-be intruders to “leave the area immediately!” Thanks to companies like Alarm.com, this new proactive form of electronic security is here to stay and growing in popularity.

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Video analytics have been around in cameras for the last 10 years. At its most basic form, these cameras are positioned to monitor wide swaths of territory and can instantly identify motion as human, vehicle, or animal. More recent innovations go even further, enabling features like facial recognition door unlocking or familiar vehicle detection. New cameras like the Alarm.com Floodlight Camera use AI detection to identify trespassers and call them out by name with voices with names like “Angry Fred.” In one of their sample scenarios, a suspicious-looking man is warned (by an extremely realistic voice) over a loudspeaker by the AI — “Person wearing a black jacket and blue jeans, you are being recorded, leave immediately or the police will be called!” I would be hard-pressed to imagine a burglar continuing on their mission after being on the receiving end of a personalized warning like that.

Here’s the best part about reframing your security mindset: It’s tailor-made for CI businesses. More cameras than ever are needed to enable this new proactive stance. All those cameras sit on a network. Who’s going to take care of all those clients and their ever-growing technology needs? Further, each of those cameras can add valuable RMR to your bottom line each month.

Also by Henry Clifford: What I Learned From a Broken Boomerang

The next time you’re driving down the road, look at the houses and businesses as you pass. How many of them have floodlights installed? I’ll save you the guesswork, it’s a lot. The majority of buildings you pass will have some sort of motion floodlight. They’re mostly dumb. Whatever flies (or doesn’t) in front of them triggers indiscriminate flashing lights. Consider declaring war on the dumb floodlight and use the campaign as a lever to pour rocket fuel on your security and network business this year.

Now that you know security starts at the street, what are you going to do about it?

Stay frosty, and see you in the field.

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