Home security via broadband
Friday 09 November 2007 14:50:48 by Sebastien Lahtinen
BT and Intamac have announced the completion of a pilot project providing home security solutions through the broadband network. With ever increasing broadband penetration, households are taking advantage of their Internet connection to help secure their homes.
The two companies have partnered together to produce a solution called BT Homesafe which provides users with home monitoring services at far lower costs than traditional burglar alarms. The system communicates over the broadband connections and allows its users to remotely view images from CCTV cameras as well as remotely manage sensors and notifications by text message, phone call or e-mail. The base system is available from £219.99. Additional sensors including fire, power failure and flooding can also be added.
More information can be found on the Intamac website.
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sounds great, unless your on a max dsl circuit which is retraining whilst you are being burgled :)
Hmmm, nice if you have the upload speed to allow the piccies to be sent up to you, like BB4 just said.
How many people will get the needed upload speeds on their 256/400kbps 50:1 contended service?
It's all very well calling it a monitored system but the police won't attend it.
Trusting the safety and security of your home to a monitored PSTN alarm system is one thing. Trusting it to the joys of BT Retail and BT Wholesale's respective broadband outfits (as in cowboy outfits) requires a level of faith far beyond mine.
And as Scousetechie points out, a monitored alarm setup has certain requirements to meet before it will get police attendance. A quick look at the Intamac website showed little evidence of those. Maybe it's ok for routine home monitoring stuff ("does the grass need cutting in the 2nd home this month") but...
If you can remotely view your home so can others. Google is full of cctv hacks. I look upon it as a system that allows criminals to case your joint from the comfort of there own armchair. They can even see if your in and check the best time to pay an unwelcome visit, even make their list of things to nick beforehand.
Sounds like a good idea in theory (maybe a tad pricey for some at £219.99) but its a nice idea, so you got to say well done for that... Only downside i see is quote "allows its users to remotely view images from CCTV cameras" while that sounds brilliant its another thing to eat into your monthly allowance if you are on one of their fixed monthly cap services.