Alas, competing HA priorities

Great minds think alike - my wife wants me to do that the next time someone tries to steal a tree.
 
what you do, is release the dogs. That way, they get off your lawn in a hurry, and they still get wet when they pee their pants. I feel your pain on stolen trees though. I grew up on a christmas tree farm, and have had to deal with it for years. No matter how many precautionary steps you take, if somoene wants something of yours enough, they're probably going to get it =\
 
A great and inexepensive deterant is to simply automate a few flood lights. Motion sensors are cheap, and no need for special lights, any appliance module will do.

The motion sensors could be mounted on the tree's themselves, aimed towards a row of bushes ect. When tripped, flood the area with light.

I can't immagine a thief continueing to steal the tree when he is completely lit up, and the possibility that someone turned those lights on certainly crosses the mind. To go a step further, have a couple lights in the house come on, and maybe a pourch light at the same time to continue that rouse.

With a W800 you can get pretty good range for the motion detectors. If you do not have one, a tranceiver plugged in close to the area with the motion sensors should pick up the signals.

A friends mailbox is down by the road. No way to get a stable Motion sensor signal from that far. Luckily he has a light post with power down there. He simply plugged in a tranceiver to it, and is able to get the signals through the wiring back to the house to know when the mail came.

With wild life, ect, it can most certainly false trip, but point is, it will trip when really needed. And with some stragetically placed detectors, you should be able to narrow the beam and reduce the false triggers. With a bit of duct/electrical tape, none of my motion sensors see from the waist down in the house/yard so my dog or outside animals trip them.

The better way to go about it, if/when you do install the camera's, is to get software with motion detection. Many of those packages let you maks out area's such as tree limbs that will blow in the wind and cause a trigger. Good part is it will only record when motion is detected. Many of these programs will also allow you to execute any program or a script when the motion event triggers. This will easily allow you to send a signal to your HA system to then control lights in that area ect.

HERE IS A GOOD simple discussion, and some software package recomendations, as well as some free software that allows camera motion detection.
 
If you are worried about false trips then why not write a rule that two of the motions have to trip within a certian time (using a counter) and then turn on the lights (basically a crosszone). You could also turn the lights on in a sequence with slight delays (interior light, porch light, floods with 10 to 15 second delays). Make it look like someone is really there.
 
Japanese Maples can get pretty expensive... I remember a few years back when there was a rash of them being stolen.. Luckily ours never got stolen.
 
Wife's priorities & my priorities begin to merge, albeit in an unfortunate way.

Wife's friends relatives just had a home-invasion last night. Suddenly PDA-monitoring of CCTV from remote locations, cellphone alerts on sensor trips, cellular backup, pushbutton "panic/instant call" button, internal CCTV pointed at the doors, motion & window sensors in every room, PVC protected phone lines, and generally getting the Elk up & running in "production" mode are now also her priority.

Glad I finally got that smoke working - wife's going to keep me busy in Elk projects for the next 6-9 months.
 
Hate to hear your friends experience... security is a great benefit of HA.

Don't forget one of the easiest ways to secure your house - make it look like someone is home. Use automated lights coming on/off at random times in the house to simulate someone being home. Also, make sure your "normal" lights always come on at the right time.
 
Yep. Tied up everyone, including the 2yr old & 4yr old. It's actually a series of 3 houses that have adjoining top floors [crazy custom built architectural design], so as more & more extended family members came home, they ran out of rope. The 7month pregnant aunt came home undetected, ran out called her husband who called the cops.

Everything ended fine, but this was in Houston, where seemingly everyone owns a gun. The hubbie decided to come back in and chase them out, as they ran he was firing shots at them.

Me, I think i'll settle for a CCTV pointed at front&back door, and a panic/instant-call-cops button near the safe. Maybe a little VR where I can say "HAL: Hostage", and have the system call the cops.
 
I used to live in Houston. Police response was not good because it is a huge urban area with a limited number of overworked officers. Now I live in Upstate NY where the Police aren't too busy but they are spread pretty thin across the vast rural countryside.

Not sure I'd want to depend on the cops as my only hope in that type of situation.
 
The real question is how did they get in? I'm obviously all for the fancy stuff too, but usually in a home invasion the perp pretends they are someone else and gets you to open the door which is when they bust in. A simple peephole in the door and restraint in opening it for strangers would be just as effective as cameras, etc. in that case. Of course a panic button and a duress code to trigger a silent alarm are always good things to have too.

The gun appears to have been effective in your friends situation... can't argue with success.
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Well, if they were armed it could have ended drastically and tragically different but anyone may do the same thing in that situation. But one should NEVER fire at someone once they are running unless they would like to become real friendly with Bubba. Come in the house and take them out yes, but not while they are running...
 
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