How to Protect Your Home When You Travel

The whole point of going on vacation is to relax and enjoy time away from your normal cares and concerns. The last thing I want to be doing is laying out on the beach somewhere and be worrying about my home security system or lack of one. There are programs that can be applied to your computer and/or cell phone to monitor your home and give you piece of mind. Here are a few good options you can use to keep an eye on your home while you enjoy your vacation.

Yawcam: To use this program all you need is a computer with a webcam. Yawcam is a freeware application that can upgrade your regular camera into a motion detecting device that can be used to take photos of intruders. You can set a timer for the photos to be taken and have them saved to your hard drive.

Home monitor: Best Buy has a system that they can apply to your home to give you complete control of your appliances and lights from where ever you are. It gives you control of the lights outside, security cameras you may have installed and the thermostat. With these features you can give the appearance that you are home while in reality you may be across the world. At night you can turn on the lights around the house and have the TV or radio playing to make noise. During the day you can turn it off as if you went to work and do the same thing again to make it seem like your routine hasn’t been interrupted. It gives you the power to control your home while you are away and that could help put the most worrisome person at ease.

Phones are now a line of defense: You may be out of town on a business trip but need for a family member to get into your house to water your plants or pick something up. You don’t want to give out the password to your alarm system though so what do you do? There are apps available now that give you control of your alarm system with the click of a few buttons. You can disarm the system from outside while you bring heavy objects or bags into the house too there are many benefits to the system.

The smartphone apps allow you to use the camera on your phone to view video through the surveillance camera from your property. You can take a look around your house and yard to see what the surveillance cam is picking up and you can even control the cameras to have them move around and cover every angle.

Another benefit to having a security system linked to your phone app is you get text alerts if the alarm is tripped. You also get notified if a fire alarm or smoke detector goes off too.

ADT, Vector Security and Alarm.com are a few of the companies that provide these security apps. They are compatible with smartphones like the iPhone and Android.