Ways to Help Reduce False Alarms on Your Security System
False alarms on security systems have long become one of the most annoying issues in the digital security world. Ever since home and car alarms were invented decades ago, the advent of false alarms has ultimately led to the very dangerous “alarm that cried wolf” syndrome. In more recent years, when we hear an alarm go off, we’re more likely to ignore it with the thought it’s just a glitch due to a vibration or technical malfunction.
While that’s something that needs fixing on its own, reducing recurring false alarms would likely help foster real alerts being easier noticed. Here’s some things you can do to help prevent false alarms for your home and your car.
Remove Objects or Pets Away from Motion Detectors
If you have something hanging in the view of your home alarm system’s motion detector that could move from vibrations, it’s best to move it to another location. This can sometimes be a hanging plant or even curtains. Blasts of air from your heating system or a minor earthquake could make these move and set off false alarms on a regular basis.
On days when you might leave your pets alone in the house for a while, be sure to not have the motion detector aimed in a place where they regularly walk around. ADT lists wandering pets as one of the standard reasons why false alarms happen so often.
Not Understanding the Alarm System or Low Batteries
Read your manual so you can fully educate yourself on how your alarm system operates. Punching in the wrong codes can usually set off regular false alarms that can be annoying to neighbors if you have a loud and ear-piercing alarm sound. This works for both car and home alarms.
Also, be sure to check the batteries often in your alarm system. Some people might not know that low batteries can make an alarm system go off rather than just not work.
Avoiding Acts of Nature
While you can’t avoid nature on your home, you sometimes can with your car. If you have the opportunity to park your car in a garage during a heavy wind storm or other weather event, it’s best to do that to avoid false alarms. Some car alarms go off due to a simple wind blast while the car is parked in a driveway or on the street.
Regardless, ADT above reminds us that false alarms are mostly due to human error rather than acts of nature. It seems there’s far too much carelessness out there in checking to make sure an alarm system is working properly.
In some cases, it’s as simple as making sure your doors and windows are secure when setting an alarm system. With life getting busier all the time for a large part of the population, we might have to be forgiving on any absentmindedness in not doing simple things. But there has to be some new interventions to stop false alarms from getting a deaf ear from other people.
When the time comes when we want strangers or neighbors to pay attention to an alarm, it’s only going to work when they haven’t heard the alarm go off very often or ever before.
