r/homesecurity

I am in a unique scenario. I always keep my deadbolt engaged in or out of my apartment. I do not have friends, family, or even neighbors I know. my car is in the garage, so I can't stick a key on my car. My porch is a barren wasteland, as is the complex.

If I'm alive enough to call for help, or someone thinks I need help, but can't get to my front door, what's the best cheap option for a key outside? There is nothing much in back either. I'm not sure I trust taping it to a utility box.

I read a lot of previous questions and answers, I'm just not quite sure where this one fits.

Want to install four Reolink on the soffits of my two-story house. Electrician quoted me $2000. POE systems wire will be run through the attic into the main closet which connects to the attic so no fishing if wire through walls needed.

My question is if I want to install these from the inside can I just pop up the soffits install the camera put the soffit back and run the POE wire across the attic into the main unit.? I don’t mind paying but that seems excessively expensive

I have a home in an area that generally has no cell phone signal. I have wifi through Comcast. I have a basement that floods often and I also live in an area where people steal things from time to time. unfortunately I haven't kept up on brands and tech as far as doorbell cameras and what not, but my end goal would be to find a camera system where I can have an indoor camera in the basement that I can monitor on my phone from time to time while I'm away for the water, and it auto reconnect if the power was to go out and come back on, and I would like it to be hard wired so I don't need to come over and recharge or press buttons to re-sync with every power outage, another camera facing outside would be nice. my main problem is not being able to reset or put my hands on the cameras between power outages and what not, I need them to be self sufficient

I am setting up a home surveillance system with a home server and I’m wondering is it possible to reconfigure an old blink mini camera so it will only talk with the server and if not what is a good alternative.

So I’m moving into a new apartment in a few months and one of the main things I want to have set up are the cameras. I need a total of 3 cameras: a doorbell camera for my front door, a camera for my back door (doesn’t have to be a doorbell camera), and one for my living room so that I can keep an eye on my dog when I’m not home.

I see SOO many people with different recommendations and opinions, but I have a list of top priorities.

- I’d like to keep them without a subscription or at least a very low one

- I would prefer they are all the same brand so that they are accessible from one app

- I want streaming and recording on the 2 door cameras and just streaming on the indoor camera

- I’d like the indoor camera to be as secure as possible (I have a bit of a tinfoil hat mentality about having a camera inside my house)

- I need them to be somewhat affordable since I have to buy 3 of them

- And of course known to be reliable and preferably a longer lasting battery (the indoor camera can be a plug-in rather than battery powered)

I know it’s impossible to find the PERFECT camera to check off all the boxes, but any recommendations would be really appreciated!

Long story short, last year we had trouble with our neighbors. Things have mostly settled down; we live our lives, they live theirs. They own the lot between our houses as well, have filled it with gardening stuff and buildings.

More and more, there are concerning actions at night. People out in the wee hours of the morning between the houses with flashlights. Their dogs going bananas at night; they don't just bark to be barking. Someone is likely out there, trying to be unseen. Noises by our car and near/in our carport. It might not even be our neighbors; our town has thieving and vandalism problems often.

I would like to put at least one small motion detector floodlight on our house right by the carport, at human level. We have a gate there too. The catch is it has to be just powerful enough to say " Hey, you've been spotted and seen," but not enough that it will reach beyond the property line, and definitely not enough to shine in their windows.

Everything we've looked at seems too bright for that space.

Since the space is so small, should I just settle for something like the "GE Outdoor Security LED Wall Light with Motion & Dusk to Dawn Sensor, Solar Light, 2400 Lumens"?

I'm not trying to sell those, just copied from Walmart's app so you can see the size and range I'm talking about.

I know what I'm asking is tricky, but I definitely don't want to set the neighbors off. We definitely don't have the time or the patience to deal with that nonsense again.

I will appreciate any suggestions, aside from move. That's not happening. Eventually I will expand, but this is a pressing problem now.

Have a good day!

My aunt and I have a shared balcony on the second floor and at night we leave our sliding doors open for cool air. Lately a cat in the neighborhood has been breaking in through her sliding screen door and opens it. We’ve tried lodging something to make the door more secure and it needed a bit of force to open and the cat still opened it. How can we make the screen door more secure so the cat can’t open it lol 😂 he’s too smart.

I bought a house that previously had hardwired entry doors with ADT system which I switched to Xfinity home. I still have the hardwired touchpads as well as the portable touchscreen. I never used it for the Alarm or security service monitoring. I merely use it for the chime notifications for the doorways downstairs as it’s a two-story house and I like to be able to hear the activity notifications of doors on the lower level.

It currently works just fine for the chime notifications of the activity. What the Xfinity touchpad continually beeps as it tries to connect to the Xfinity service.

I would like to be able to use the hardwired chimes in the current system as is but just with the notifications of activity

Is this possible?

I can’t upload photos but we moved into a house that looks like it had a POE security system installed. There are 4 dome cameras that I have traced a cat5 cable from into the wall. Oddly, the port they seem to terminate into looks like a lan line port in the wall. Shouldn’t there be 4 separate Ethernet cables so they can be plugged into a system?

I am trying to figure out what the point of this scam was or if there is an ongoing security issue that I should address.

A discount on my mom's Comcast internet service was terminated, so she called Comcast to see if she was able to get that discount extended. I have confirmed that she did initially call an actual Comcast representative. During that initial conversation, the representative mentioned that she could get an even bigger discount if she bundled with an ADT home security service, to which my mom said yes. She was then connected to a supposed ADT representative on the call.

This is where things get weird. She agrees to the security system and a technician has come and installed it. We have called ADT directly and confirmed that it is an actual ADT system that was installed at her house.

However, during that process, the original ADT representative called my mom repeatedly asking for a code from Comcast in order to activate the discount. He has called multiple times a day, and the call always comes from different numbers and area codes that are not listed anywhere online as an ADT or Comcast number. My mom was visiting me out of state at the time, which is when I first found out about this, when the supposed ADT representative called her at 9PM at night demanding the code. He would not accept that she was out of town and was not able to get the code.

I was getting suspicious at that time, so I told her to tell him to call her back in 10 minutes. When he did call back, I answered the phone and asked him to explain the situation to me. He kept asking for the code, so I told him that we would call back on the main ADT line tomorrow when we had it. he started getting very mad, saying that won't work and for me to put my mom back on. That was enough for me to end the call and told her not to respond to him anymore.

We did call Comcast back and they have confirmed that there is no such discount being offered between them and ADT, although they were able to match the discount separately. ADT has confirmed it is one of their actual security systems that was installed. I am not sure there was some sort of larger scam at play or if that original representative was just trying to get a kickback for something, but I want to be sure there isn't something fishy going on (like someone is spying on my mom with this system). My mom likes the security system so I don't want to tell her to remove it unless needed

Has anyone run into this before?